Newsroom Team
DUKE HELFAND
Executive Director, Communications
Duke Helfand serves as executive director of Communications at Cedars-Sinai. Prior to joining the health system in 2011, Duke worked as a reporter at the Los Angeles Times for 20 years, covering healthcare, education, religion, City Hall and other beats. He earned his master's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.
Editor-in-Chief, Newsroom
Director, External Communications
Before joining Cedars-Sinai in 2009, Sally Stewart was a journalist for USA Today. After covering the first O.J. Simpson trial, Sally became a public relations consultant and authored a communications how-to book called Media Training 101: A Guide to Meeting the Press (Wiley).
Associate Director, Health System Broadcast News
Soshea Leibler oversees production of videos for the Cedars-Sinai Newsroom. She also covers Guerin Children's, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Women’s Guild Simulation Center for Advanced Clinical Skills, emergency medicine and the use of virtual reality in healthcare. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Soshea was a senior TV News producer at CBS News.
Associate Director, Science and Service Line Communications
Cara Martinez covers Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University and artificial intelligence. Previously, Cara served as associate director of communications at the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) and held other communications positions at the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Orange County United Way. She earned her master's degree in strategic public relations from the University of Southern California.
Deputy Newsroom Editor
Manager, Health System Growth Communications
Marni Usheroff covers innovations related to the quality or value of healthcare, infectious diseases, Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Network and health system growth. She also manages the Newsroom's daily operations. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai in 2016, Marni was a journalist for the Los Angeles Business Journal and The Orange County Register. She earned her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she won the Horgan Prize for science writing.
CHRISTINA ELSTON
Supervisor, Science Communications
[email protected]
Christina Elston covers the Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cedars-Sinai Cancer and the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute. Before joining the Cedars-Sinai Newsroom team in 2021, Christina Elston was editor of L.A. Parent magazine, providing information on education, health and parenting to families across Los Angeles County. Her decades-long career in journalism also includes an Annenberg Health Journalism Fellowship and authorship of two books on children’s health and safety.
Lead Communications Specialist
Bilingual: Spanish
Melissa Vizcarra covers the Department of Orthopaedics, nursing, health equity and diversity, and the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. She is fluent in Spanish and oversees Spanish-language content for the Noticias section of the Cedars-Sinai Newsroom. Prior to joining the Communications team in 2019, Melissa spent more than a decade in healthcare communications at one of the nation’s premier pediatric hospitals. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
Lead Communications Specialist
Stephanie Cajigal covers the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, including cardiology and cardiac surgery. She previously worked as a public information specialist for UCLA, and as an editor at Medscape from WebMD where she oversaw women’s health features and enterprise reporting projects. She earned a master’s degree in health communication from Johns Hopkins University.
Senior Communications Specialist
Laura Coverson supports the departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medicine (gastroenterology, pulmonology, critical care medicine, endocrinology, diabetes, metabolism, nephrology, internal medicine and hepatology), the KAO Autoimmunity Institute and the Human Microbiome Institute. She is an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist and medical news producer who previously worked in the news divisions of ABC and CBS networks and at KCET.
Senior Communications Specialist
Kristin Reynolds covers a variety of departments at Cedars-Sinai. Prior to joining the Newsroom team in 2022, she was Editorial Director for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, led public relations teams at multiple Los Angeles firms, and was a newspaper reporter and freelance writer. She earned a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Senior Communications Specialist
Kelsie Sandoval covers neurology and neurosurgery, aging, Geriatrics, Cedar-Sinai’s Center for Translational Geroscience, Cedars-Sinai International, the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator, Tech Ventures and computational biomedicine. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Kelsie was a senior media relations officer at UCLA Health and a journalist for NBC and Business Insider. She earned a master’s degree in journalism with a concentration in health and science at The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Senior Communications Specialist
Jillian Scholten covers surgery, urology, transplant, pharmacy, anesthesiology, pathology and ear, nose and throat. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai in 2023, Jillian was senior manager of Public Relations for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) and previously worked in the consumer PR space with major national and international brands. She earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations and advertising from Chapman University.
Senior Communications Specialist
Shishira Sreenivas covers Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s. She also produces videos for the Cedars-Sinai Newsroom. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Shishira worked as a health writer at WebMD, The Messenger and as a features editor at Hotelier Middle East magazine at ITP Media in Dubai, UAE. Her work has also appeared in Mashable and WVU Medicine. She earned a master’s degree in global humanities from Towson University and a master’s degree in journalism from West Virginia University.
Communications Specialist
Camille Meggs is a communications specialist on the Development Communications team in the Advancement Department at Cedars-Sinai, supporting donor-related projects and services. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Meggs was an Emmy Award-winning journalist, who worked in the broadcast news divisions of NBC and Superstation WGN.