Trity Pourbahrami

Trity Pourbahrami is a communications leader with more than 15 years of international experience in strategic communications, education, public relations, and community engagement, spanning multiple sectors. She joins the foundation from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a world-renowned science and engineering institute, where she served as the communications director for the division of engineering and applied science. In this role, she led the communications office of Caltech’s largest academic division and collaborated on communications efforts across all six Caltech divisions and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She also designed and taught an innovative graduate course in effective communication and was instrumental in establishing the first science and engineering communications academic program at Caltech. In addition, she was the editor of the award-winning publication ENGenious.

Previously she was an executive consultant serving leaders in the nonprofit, government, higher education, and corporate sectors throughout Southern California. She also has extensive international experience. As a representative of the Canadian Society for International Health and the University of Hawaiʻi, her cultural awareness and approach were instrumental to the teams gaining trust and negotiating complex environments.

Trity earned her Bachelor of Science degrees in physics and physiology from the University of British Columbia and her master’s degree in social welfare and public administration from the University of Hawai’i. She serves on several leadership committees locally, nationally, and internationally to increase diversity and inclusion in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields.