Olesea Svet

Executive director for research communications

Olesea Svet joins Virginia Commonwealth University as Executive Director of Research Communications in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, where she will lead the strategy, brand, and storytelling behind one of the nation's leading public research enterprises. She brings twenty-two years of communications and marketing leadership built across two chapters: eighteen years leading communications, marketing, sales, and business development strategy across global B2B markets, followed by four years most recently in academic medicine, leading strategic communications for Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine, a Carnegie R1 research institution.

At FAU, Olesea served as principal strategic advisor to the Dean and senior leadership, overseeing institutional communications, executive messaging, and brand positioning for a research-intensive academic medical college. She partnered closely with university media relations on research storytelling and faculty positioning, translating complex research into narratives that earned national and international coverage, and contributed to the college's strong earned media presence. Her work extended across the university, coordinating with partners on initiatives with campus-wide reach, and she built key programs from the ground up, including the college's alumni engagement program and its internal leadership communications infrastructure.

That range, spanning global B2B and academic medicine, has sharpened one instinct above all: knowing how to turn complexity into narratives that move faculty, funders, policymakers, and the public. At VCU, she brings that instinct to building the communications framework behind OVPRI's strategic research priorities, working to elevate the university's research profile locally, nationally, and globally.

Please join us in welcoming Olesea to VCU and to the OVPRI team.