Overview

You don't need to become a charismatic speaker or a gifted writer to be a great communicator. You're already a world-class problem solver. Communication by Design shows you how to apply the systematic design process you already know to your presentations, papers, and proposals - ensuring your best technical work gets the attention it deserves. Drawing on two decades of experience mentoring researchers at Stanford University, Jack W. Baker introduces a five-stage, audience-focused design process - Empathize, Define, Brainstorm, Prototype, and Test - and applies it to the communication challenges that define academic careers. From structuring a conference talk to navigating peer review, from designing effective graphics to writing a winning grant proposal, each chapter delivers actionable frameworks backed by research and illustrated with real examples. Whether you're a graduate student preparing your first presentation or an experienced researcher looking to sharpen your impact, this book gives you a repeatable process for communicating complex ideas clearly and persuasively.

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Table of Contents

Reviews

""Brilliant engineering alone does not change the world - understanding does. The most important ideas can be overlooked if they are not clearly communicated. Communication by Design shows engineers how to translate technical excellence into real-world impact."" Reginald DesRoches, President, Rice University; National Academy of Engineering ""To solve tomorrow's most complex problems, technical skills won't be enough. Engineers must become outstanding communicators. This book shows you exactly how."" Jerome Lynch, Dean of Engineering, Duke University ""Baker clearly demonstrates why engineers need to communicate more effectively, and more importantly, he explains how to do it. Communication by Design provides specific, actionable advice to improve research communication and is now required reading for my research group."" Ellen Rathje, Janet S. Cockrell Centennial Chair, The University of Texas, Austin; National Academy of Engineering ""This book is filled with priceless advice on how researchers can communicate their work clearly and effectively. I really wish I had a resource like this during my PhD. This book will no doubt become a valuable resource for students and early-career researchers navigating the challenges of technical communication."" Irene Alisjahbana, lecturer at Stanford University's d.school, teaching Creativity in Research Scholars and The Design of Data ""This fine book will be enormously helpful to students and faculty learning how to craft a talk, design a poster, write a paper or proposal, and navigate the review process. These essential elements of an engineer or scientist's career have rarely been explained in such a lucid and compelling manner."" Ross S. Stein, Temblor, Inc. CEO, Stanford Lecturer on Scientific Presentation ""A practical, substantive text that will help any new scientist in their career."" Jack Leeming, Chief Careers Editor, Nature ""Every STEM researcher needs this book, and I say that as someone who assumed I already knew how to communicate my work. The examples are genuinely interactive, the storytelling makes the takeaways stick, and the level of detail is surprising in the best way. Packed with clear, practical tips you can use right away."" Favour Nerrise, Stanford 3 Minute-Thesis competition winner, Electrical Engineering PhD Candidate ""As a former PhD advisee of Jack Baker's, I've found the writing and speaking skills I developed in his group invaluable in my career at Google. This book documents that training and makes it accessible to any reader."" Nirmal Jayaram, Senior Director of Engineering, Google

Author Information

Jack W. Baker is the William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He teaches and researches disaster risk and structural reliability, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Earthquake Spectra. He has spent two decades helping researchers communicate their technical work through presentations, papers, and proposals.

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