Robyn Travis grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated from the University of Cape Town with a B.A. Degree in sociology and psychology. She started a career in retail buying and merchandising for a chain of department stores in Johannesburg.

She left South Africa in the late 1970's with the immigrant's dream of freedom and potential. Her journey led her to Los Angeles where she met her husband, Gabriel Travis, then a resident in Neurology at UCLA. Robyn and Gabriel moved to La Jolla where Gabriel did a postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Neuroscience at Scripps Research Institute and Robyn began to study accounting.

In 1989, Robyn and Gabriel moved to Dallas, where Gabriel took a faculty position at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. There, Robyn started her own accounting business. She also acquired a second bachelor's degree at University of Texas, a German Shepherd puppy, and a daughter, Chloe.

In 2001, Robyn, Chloe, Gabriel and Sunny moved back to Los Angeles when Gabriel was recruited to UCLA as the Charles Kenneth Feldman Professor of Ophthalmology. The four are currently living in Pacific Palisades where Robyn has recently established a partnership with another accountant. She has also begun to pursue seriously her life-long interest in writing fiction, especially about her homeland, South Africa, during the apartheid period of her girlhood.

Robyn brings to the Affiliates her interest in the human element of vision research.