Marisa Quinn, Chief of Staff to Provost, Brown University

The Caring Economy with Toby Usnik

Marisa A. Quinn, is an experienced higher education administrative leader with expertise in policy development and execution, public affairs, and strategic communications. Since January 2016, she has served as chief of staff in the Office of the Provost at Brown University. She joined the Brown community in 1999, and has worked in a variety of capacities, including: vice president for public affairs and university relations; director of communications and outreach for the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs; assistant to the president for President Ruth J. Simmons; and director of community and government relations.

She began her career as a legislative aide to US Senator Claiborne Pell on the Subcommittee on Education, Arts and the Humanities. She subsequently served as policy advisor to New Jersey Governor James J. Florio; public affairs specialist at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and chief of communications and public information at the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a bachelor’s degree in political science and earned a master’s degree from the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. She is currently chair of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission and a board member of Trinity Repertory Company.