Mike Fricano is the public information officer at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. He writes news releases about the Center’s research, handles media inquiries, pitches the Center’s work to media, conducts Q&As, and writes features that help demonstrate the impact the Center makes in California and around the country. 

Prior to joining the Center, Fricano was the director of UCLA Media in Strategic Communications, overseeing everything that appeared on UCLA Newsroom and the team that produced UCLA Magazine. Before coming to UCLA, Fricano taught writing and journalism to teenagers in Los Angeles County at the independent, nonprofit newspaper L.A. Youth and worked as a reporter at the Albany Times Union.

Fricano has a master’s degree in newspaper journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Arizona.