Speakers
Victor Balta
Victor Balta joined the University of Washington in 2014 and now serves as the UW’s senior director for media relations and spokesperson. He is the lead media advisor to the President, Provost and UW administration, and chair of the UW’s Crisis Communications Team. Victor also manages the UW News team, which connects UW researchers, faculty and staff with regional to international media through pitches, prepared news releases, op-eds, and when called on for expertise on topics in the news.
He was previously the online news planning editor at Al Jazeera America in New York, where he assigned and edited news and feature stories from staff writers and a network of nearly 100 freelance writers around the country. He has also held editing and writing positions at Current TV in San Francisco, Comcast.net in Philadelphia, The Herald in Everett, Wash., and other newspapers in Northern California.
Pete Mackey
Across more than 25 years of communications leadership in higher education, Pete Mackey has become a specialist in institutional branding, communications strategies, media management, team-building and perceptions research that leads to meaningful return on investment.
Before establishing his consulting practice, Mackey served as the founding chief communications officer at four different institutions—Amherst College, Bucknell University, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, and Science Foundation Ireland—and led communications for the University of South Carolina. Today his clients include large research universities, liberal arts colleges, research foundations and small businesses. In addition to his consulting practice, he runs the Future Sessions Strategy Bootcamp for non-profit communications staff.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Teresa often says that while her husband is her true love, her alma mater was her first love. Higher education is her home. She is known for honesty juxtaposed with optimism; the two combine to provide communications counsel focused on transparent leadership and relationship building. Teresa helps higher education executives truthfully share excellence and genuinely own mistakes through their communications and actions because she knows honesty is present in all sound proactive and crisis outreach.
Previously, Teresa served as senior vice president for Widmeyer Communications and vice president for SimpsonScarborough. She counts almost 10 years of service with the University of Colorado, including an officer-level appointment as Assistant Secretary of the University.
She is co-host of the Trusted Voices Podcast, co-editor of Call to Action for Inside Higher Ed, and has numerous bylines with national and higher education media.
Teresa earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Colorado Boulder, a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Colorado Denver, and a doctoral degree in higher education policy and leadership from Southern Methodist University. She holds accreditation in public relations from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
She lives in Longmont, Colorado, with her husband and dogs. Each year she threatens to become a runner and instead spends her time traveling with her family. Don’t get her started on how amazing her college-aged daughter is unless you have a spare hour or two. Or three. She serves on the boards of PRSA, the Colorado-based Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), and KUNC public radio and the Colorado Sound. She is a member of the Denver Ballet Guild.
Robert Perkins
Robert Perkins is a Content and Media Strategist/Emergency Communications Coordinator at Caltech. A former news reporter, he took a job as a public information officer at the LA County Department of Public Health at the beginning of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. He later managed research communications at USC. Perkins is a graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism at KU and the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC. He lives in Altadena, California.