Biography

Sultana Ali is an accredited public relations (APR) professional with more than two decades of experience across nonprofit, academic, and business sectors. In her role as Director, Marketing and Communications II, she leads marketing and public relations activities for the College of Sciences (COS), supporting a broad range of stakeholders and overseeing communications with internal and external audiences. She has a Master’s degree in Strategic Public Relations from The George Washington University and received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida in Marketing with a focus on International Business, and a minor in Political Science.

Prior to joining COS, Ali worked in Washington, D.C. as Senior Communications Manager for The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization which uses data to make a difference. In that position, she developed proactive strategies for institutional communications and worked collaboratively with researchers and communicators across the organization to support timely and thoughtful storytelling in diverse formats—from podcasts to articles to videos. She also supported experts studying issues from financial mobility to the environment through spokesperson training and strategic messaging to ensure effective and clear communications.

Ali previously worked for Ketchum’s Washington, D.C. office in its social marketing department serving government, corporate, and nonprofit clients—including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, FedEx, and Bayer Consumer Health Care—in strategic communications, media relations, and corporate social responsibility. She also worked at an agency in Orlando, Florida where she directed communications strategy for clients, which included the University of Central Florida, Kennedy Space Center, and the Orange County Supervisor of Elections. She has served as Adjunct Faculty at Georgetown University’s Public Relations and Corporate Communications program since 2017, where she created a course for Reputation Management, taught Ethics in PR, and advises students in their final Capstone projects. As a longtime community volunteer, she has served in various board leadership roles and as a youth mentor in high schools.

Ali is an active member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and former President of its largest chapter of PR professionals in the U.S., PRSA-NCC.