Shayna Chabner Appointed Chief Communications Officer

To: The Caltech Community
From: Diana Jergovic, Vice President, Strategy Implementation; Acting Vice President, Development & Institute Relations
Date: May 20, 2019
Re: Shayna Chabner appointed Chief Communications Officer

I am delighted to announce that Shayna Chabner has been appointed Caltech's Chief Communications Officer, effective June 3, 2019.

As Chief Communications Officer, Shayna will lead the Institute's communications efforts, dedicated to increasing public awareness and understanding of Caltech's research programs, faculty, and students, and will work to advance Institute initiatives and priorities. Shayna will ensure effective collaboration with and among communications partners across the Institute and will facilitate alignment among Institute-wide communications efforts. Shayna will also coordinate with JPL colleagues to ensure appropriate integration and collaboration of communications and public events across campus and lab. Finally, she will serve as the Institute's public information officer, and primary adviser on all communications matters and opportunities.

Shayna is an experienced and talented communications strategist who most recently served as the Senior Director of Strategy and Special Projects in the Office of Strategic Communications. In this role, she was instrumental in conceptualizing and implementing many strategic communications efforts, including work in support of LIGO's initial detection of gravitational waves, the 2017 and 2018 Nobel Prize announcements, and recent commencement ceremonies. She also convened communicators across campus and JPL in monthly Communicators Council meetings and managed the daily content flow and coverage of research news and campus life stories.

Shayna brings more than a decade of additional professional experience in journalism, strategic communications, marketing, event planning, and coordination to the Chief Communications Officer role. She began her career in higher education as a communications specialist at California State University, Los Angeles. Prior to that, Shayna worked as a journalist, covering education, local government, and community affairs, as well as Washington, D.C., legislative policy and government, for a number of newspapers across Southern California. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from Northwestern University.

Please join me in congratulating Shayna on her new role.