Wendy Bohon approached a table at the California Geological Survey library in Sacramento and began to give Puck\u2019s closing speech from William Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only this time, some of the speech was adapted to be about earthquakes. Once again, Bohon was making her worlds converge.<\/p>\n
Bohon is a trained Shakespearean actress who briefly worked in Hollywood after college. She shifted to earthquake science after experiencing an earthquake. Since early 2024, Bohon has been helping lead the state\u2019s earthquake preparedness efforts as branch chief of seismic hazards and earthquake engineering for the state\u2019s geologic agency.<\/p>\n
She plays a unique role for California as someone who blends doctoral-level scientific acumen with skill in communication and drawing an audience. Some of this is evident in her TikTok account @drwendyrocksit<\/a>, where she has about 55,000 followers .<\/p>\n \u201cScientifically, I do it because I think it\u2019s important,\u201d Bohon said. \u201cPersonally, I do it because it scratches that itch. And then I also do it because I\u2019m really interested in the data and how we can use it to be better communicators and get more science to the people that are interested in it.\u201d<\/p>\n Bohon, 49, might never win a major acting award. But through an offbeat path she\u2019s followed to her current work, Bohon could help millions of Californians be prepared for the next significant earthquake.<\/p>\n Finding a mentor<\/p>\n Lucy Jones hired Bohon in 2000 for her first earthquake-related job, at the Southern California office of the U.S. Geological Survey, on Caltech\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n Jones was in the midst of a 30-plus-year tenure for USGS that made her famous in earthquake-related work. The Los Angeles Times noted in 2016 that Jones had \u201cbeen called the Beyonc\u00e9 of earthquakes.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Part of how Jones set herself apart was by communicating with the media.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the \u201980s, when I came to Caltech, they would just be like, \u2018Why are you wasting time talking to the media? That\u2019s time you\u2019re not putting into the next paper to be published,\u2019\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n But a willingness to talk gained Jones influential followers, such as now-U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla. He said in a phone interview that following any major earthquake, Jones was the first individual he\u2019d \u201cturn to for insight and information and I think the general public expects to see on television as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n It helped give Jones a reputation, too. Bohon recalled that she often heard others say, \u201cUntil Lucy Jones says it I don\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduating from James Madison University with a theater degree and moving to California, Bohon had limited professional success. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really interested in the Hollywood thing, but when you\u2019re 21 it\u2019s very appealing to just go and have a great time,\u201d Bohon said. \u201cI did a lot of hair commercials. I did some soap operas.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Bohon felt the 7.1-magnitude Hector Mine quake, which was centered in the Southern California desert, from her Hollywood apartment in 1999. She likened experiencing an earthquake to riding a rollercoaster.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get to the top and you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God, why did I do this?\u2019\u201d Bohon said. \u201cAnd then you go over the edge and it\u2019s exhilarating and it\u2019s scary but it\u2019s exhilarating.\u201d<\/p>\n Bohon reached out to the Southern California USGS office in the months following the quake and asked if there was anything she could do. She became an outreach and education coordinator for its earthquake hazards program.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s such a go-getter,\u201d Jones said. \u201cShe was fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n Bohon wrote via email that Jones \u201cwas hugely influential to me in a lot of different ways,\u201d including in teaching her how to discuss science and in being \u201ca woman in scientific leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe served as a role model, showing me what was possible and now I strive to do the same for the folks coming up after me,\u201d Bohon wrote.<\/p>\n