The Keck Medicine of USC corporate communications team was awarded a Silver Anvil during the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) 2025 Anvil Awards.

PRSA is the nation’s leading communications professional organization, and Silver Anvil awards acknowledge the best strategic public relations campaigns of the year. The awards ceremony was held in May in New York.

The team won in the category of Multicultural Public Relations for its media campaign, “Hearing Aids Save Lives,” promoting a study by Keck Medicine otolaryngologist Janet Choi, MD, suggesting that hearing aid use extends the lives of those with hearing loss by 24%. Team members leveraged the study into a multi-pronged media strategy that earned 652 media placements and reached a total audience of 142 million.

This is the second time in recent years that Keck Medicine has been recognized at the annual PRSA awards. In 2023, the corporate communications team was named the PRSA Team of the Year for its high-achieving efforts during the pandemic.

The corporate communications team has also won many awards at the local level through the Los Angeles Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA-LA) PRism awards, which honor the best in Los Angeles area public relations campaigns.

In 2022, the team was named the PRSA-LA In-House Team of the Year; in 2023 the corporate communications team and Keck Medicine’s internal communications team each won several PRism awards; and in 2024, the corporate communications team won five PRisms and, along with communication colleagues throughout Keck Medicine, won the prestigious President’s Award. The President’s Award is given to the organization that receives the most PRism awards that year.

The corporate communications team consists of Meg Aldrich, associate administrator, corporate communications; Cynthia Smith, director of media relations; Mary Dacuma Ferguson, media relations manager; Alison Rainey, senior media relations specialist; Gabbi Robison, media relations specialist; Laura Nuño, media relations specialist; and Jessica Reynolds, filming coordinator.

— Alison Rainey