Stacie Burgess is the Director of Communications. In her former role, she served as the senior advisor for communications and stakeholder relations and serves as the acting deputy assistant secretary for external affairs at ACF. Prior to joining the Biden Administration in November 2023, Burgess was Fenway Health’s first vice president of communications. She has also served as public affairs director at American University, a global research institution in Washington, D.C. As the first-ever director of communications and external affairs for the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, she led communications and marketing efforts for the National Civil Rights Coalition on Police Reform.

Burgess also led communications for Election Protection, a national nonpartisan voter protection coalition led by the Lawyers’ Committee to educate, empower and engage voters during the 2016 presidential election, the first to be held in 50 years without the full protection of the Voters’ Rights Act. She held two executive leadership positions with the Baltimore County, Maryland, government. She was first appointed as communications director with the Office of the County Executive and then worked as chief of communications and constituent services with the county’s Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, she led communications and marketing for all public health and safety-related initiatives ranging from vaccine clinics designed to reach marginalized populations with little access to health care to efforts to reduce opioid overdoses.

Early in her career, as media relations manager for Howard University, from which Burgess holds a Master of Arts in organizational communications and a Bachelor of Arts in broadcast journalism, she was instrumental in strengthening Howard University Hospital’s brand reputation and maximizing media coverage for the university’s 12 schools and colleges, hospital, presidential initiatives and special events.