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.