Communicating Excellence: A Newsmaker Dinner Conversation with Brent Colburn

Brent Colburn is Princeton’s vice president for communications and public affairs. He will join Joe Stephens, director of the Program in Journalism, to discuss his path from politics to public service and how he and his team convey to the world Princeton’s story of service and academic excellence.

Colburn joined the University on February 1, after serving as vice president for communications at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and pediatrician and educator Dr. Priscilla Chan. Before that, Colburn was a senior communications and public affairs official at several cabinet-level federal agencies and political campaigns.

Colburn was assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs; chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; national communications director of the 2012 Obama for America campaign; assistant secretary for public affairs for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and director of external affairs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At Princeton, Colburn is responsible for the offices of communications, public affairs, government affairs, and community and regional affairs.

Professor Stephens is a veteran investigative projects reporter who spent nearly two decades at The Washington Post, and leads the Newsmaker Dinner discussion series.

Fill a plate at the Mathey servery and bring it downstairs to the PDR to join in this illuminating discussion.

Please RSVP to journalism@princeton.edu.