#SoCaltech: Jessica Griffiths
“My sister, Kate, has degrees in both advertising and theater, and works as an art director at an advertising firm. She’s very, very creative. As a bioengineering grad student, I have a different skill set. I was feeling a bit frustrated at the science material that’s out there. There’s a lot for kids—simple and basic things—but for adults it’s often just filled with jargon. I felt like there was an area in the middle to make something visually appealing and interesting that also would be understandable. We’ve really enjoyed starting this Instagram account, and we’ve gotten some good feedback, like, ‘I just spent all weekend trying to understand this concept and reading articles. And just going through this post, you’ve already put it all together, and now I understand it, so thank you.’ It’s not rocket science. Anybody with the scientific knowledge would be able to communicate this way if they had practice. Talking each post through with my sister and getting feedback about stuff she doesn’t understand, I’ve learned what the most important parts of explaining are. Distilling it down is a lot of the process because we have limited space on Instagram. But also, less is just sometimes more. Obviously, the thing on people’s minds right now is SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, and the vaccine. We also have some more posts like the one we did on Alexander Fleming and his discovery of penicillin in the pipeline. When you tell those stories, about the individuals and what they thought about their research and how they stumbled along the way, it’s so much more relatable and exciting to people than just describing science as a series of chemical or biological interactions.”
Jessica Griffiths is a bioengineering graduate student in the lab of Sarkis Mazmanian, Caltech’s Luis B. and Nelly Soux Professor of Microbiology. With her sister, Kate, an art director in Portland, Oregon, she started an Instagram account, Science Translators, that aims to present scientific topics—from prion diseases to penicillin to vaccines—in an engaging and understandable way.
#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.