University of Rhode Island

Michaela Benford was promoted to Assistant AD, Media Relations in April 2023 after serving as Media Relations Coordinator.

Benford joined the Rhode Island staff in the summer of 2016. She currently serves as the primary contact for women’s soccer, men's and women's cross country, women's basketball, women's lacrosse and men's and women's track & field.

Benford handles the day-to-day media relations tasks, including coordinating interviews between student-athletes, coaches and media, creating content for GoRhody.com, maintaining game notes for media and assisting with game day and event operations.

In addition to her team-specific duties, she oversees social media strategy for several of the athletic programs. 

She comes to Kingston after interning within the athletic operations department at Brown. Prior to that, she was working at Notre Dame in the media relations office as an athletic communications intern.

Benford is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University where she earned her degree in Sports, Entertainment, and Event Management.