#SoCaltech: Robyn Javier

“People sometimes feel that if you make scientific content accessible for other people, then you are in some way dumbing it down; that it's a measure of how smart your audience is if they can decode what you're saying. That's something I'm trying to work against. Your goal is never to dumb down the content; it's to explain it in a way that's accessible for where your audience currently is, understanding that there's a difference between knowledge and intelligence. You can have a really intelligent audience that just doesn't have that specific knowledge. I try to get students thinking about that, checking with people outside of their degree option, for example, so that somebody who's a computer science major gets feedback from a student in applied physics who will say, ‘I don't know what all these different computer science jargon terms mean.’”

Robyn Javier is a STEM communication specialist and lecturer in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science (EAS). She teaches courses in science communication and provides one-on-one assistance and coaching for EAS undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty.

#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.