304-293-6928 Tracy.Novak@mail.wvu.edu Chestnut Ridge Research Building, P.O. Box 6229, 866 Chestnut Ridge Road, Ste. 309, Morgantown, WV 26506-6229
Communications Director
Expertise
Tracy Novak has over 30 years in communications and event management.
She started her career in communications as an undergraduate at the WVU School of Journalism when she interned as an editorial and advertising assistant at a peer-reviewed journal for engineers specializing in cost and project management. Upon graduation in 1982, she was offered the job of associate editor at the journal and later became the managing editor.
Novak returned to the university in 1991 as a writer/editor for the National Research Center for Coal and Energy. When the NRCCE moved into its new research building on the Evansdale campus, she began managing the center’s conference facility and extending learning classrooms while continuing to support the organization with marketing, event management and website development. She became the communications director in 2015, and kept the position when the organization transitioned into the Energy Institute, and then was renamed the WVU Institute for Sustainability and Energy Research in July 2023.
Education
Novak earned a bachelor's from West Virginia University, with additional graduate studies in integrated marketing communications.