The Communications team leads strategic communications efforts for the school, particularly those relating to the Dean’s Office, Admissions, Medical Education, and more. We also work closely with the UAB Office of Marketing and Communications and the Health System Marketing Team to generate coordinated, unified messaging across our academic medical center. Our team maintains the Heersink School of Medicine website, produces the weekly newsletter, and manages the school's social media presence on Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. We also create a variety of publications such as UAB Medicine Magazine and the school’s Annual Report. You can learn more about our individual services below, and we look forward to assisting you with your needs.
Communications Requests
Heersink Publicity Request
The Heersink communications team promotes news from across the school. The team will help guide which channel your news and announcement is most appropriately suited, including the weekly Heersink School of Medicine newsletter and social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Story: fully developed stories or ideas for potential stories about individuals, teams, or units. These may include stories about awards, honors, service, teaching, research, community work, volunteerism, discoveries, and patient care.
Announcements: key messages that pertain to at least one core group within the school: faculty, trainees, students, and/or staff. These may include grant and funding opportunities, call for award nominations, compliance news, facilities updates, and more.
Events: relevant events that pertain to at least one core group within the school. These may include one-time seminars, symposia, employee events, and more.
Web Requests
Our team works closely with UAB Web Operations and Web Communications. We set the look and feel across all sites, provide technical support, and provide recommendations and best practices for your site projects and updates.
Web Edits: we only make content edits to the select sites. If you have an edit request for a site not supported by our team, email us and we'll connect you with their site manager.
Branding Requests
With the introduction of our new school name, all department's marketing and promotional efforts (internal or external) using the name or logo of the Heersink School of Medicine are now required to be submitted for approval before submitting to the UAB marketing approval process.
Marketing and promotional efforts include but are not limited to:
- Apparel, merchandise and promotional items
- Ads (print, TV, radio, billboard, and social)
- Large-format printing (posters, banners, elevator wraps, graphic displays)
- Brochures, booklets, pamphlets
- Publications (magazine, annual report)
- Promotional videos
- Sponsorships
- Signage
Submit branding approval request
Branding support: if you have questions about branding or have a special branding scenario that you need help with and isn't covered in the Heersink brand resources toolkit or on the UAB toolkit, submit a request and we'll be happy to assist you.
Need help with something else?
If you need help with something not listed here, email somcomm@uab.edu, and we'll be in touch.
Team Leadership
Reporters and journalists should contact Media Relations at 205-934-3884 or after hours at 205-934-3411.
Paige Dorman
Executive Director, Communications
paiged@uab.edu
Cell: 205-209-1985
Jessica Martindale
Shared Services Communications Director
jmartindale@uab.edu
Cell: 205-746-4926
Chelsea Eytel Slovensky
Communications Director
cneytel@uab.edu
Tyler Furgerson
Assistant Director of Creative Services
tylerf@uab.edu
Cell: 205-407-0983
For any unit-specific communications needs, please contact the appropriate unit communicator.