Suzanne Trimel

Suzanne Trimel rejoined PEN America as a senior communications and media advisor in 2022 after a 2019 consultancy in communications and development. She has extensive experience working with organizations to drive ideas into the public conversation on priorities ranging from education and global human rights to health and the environment.

A journalist for a decade in New York and Washington, she served as vice president for public affairs at Barnard College and earlier, associate director of public affairs at Columbia University from the late 1990s to 2008. She then joined Amnesty International as U.S. media director where her work focused on human rights and social justice in the U.S. and abroad. In recent years, she has worked as director of communications at Outright Action International and as a consultant on branding, public relations and media and as a writer with the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, the International Budget Partnership, and the Hearing Health Foundation.