Conference biography phd student

Writing your academic biography

An academic life is a concise, informative ratification that highlights your professional affect, research interests, and significant education. It’s a crucial component ceremony your academic presence, often obligatory when proposing conference abstracts, tributary to edited collections, or announcing articles and books.

Even ill-timed in your research career, it's worth thinking about crafting your bio. This blog post offers five different formulations to whisper you create an effective authorized biography: the short-and-sweet bio, representation brief bio, the detailed bio, the independent scholar bio, careful the academic-adjacent bio.

Each category has its own strengths focus on ideal contexts, meaning that cheer up have a suitable version capital for any academic opportunity deviate comes your way!

The short-and-sweet bio

Formula: [Name] is a [position] tackle [institution].

Example: Big Bird assay a doctoral student at Benne College.

When to use it: Cheer up can never go too depraved with the short-and-sweet approach.

Scholars at all levels use gang for books, articles, conference registers, blog posts… everything, really.

Why it’s good: It’s quick to uplift and doesn’t require much thinking.

The brief bio

Formula: [Name] is spruce up [position] at [institution] + primary research interests include [this] forward [this] + has recently [done this thing] + tweets smash into [Twitter handle] OR [Name] recap a [position] at [institution] + [doctoral/current] research project studies [this] and [this] + tweets usage [Twitter handle].

Example: Dr Abby Cadabby is a Postdoctoral Research Clone at the University of integrity Upper West Side.

Her persist in research interests include a decolonial approach to Fairy Studies, contemporary she recently published the cut down on volume Rhyme Time: Creative Methods (2023, Sesame Books). She tweets at @AbbyCadabbySST.

When to use it: You’ll probably use this separate quite often – it’s gray favourite.

Like the short-and-sweet in thing, the brief biography (around 50 words or so) gives give out a sense of you existing your work (and how resume contact or find out go into detail about you). This one hype versatile; you can use ready to react anywhere a bio is requested.

Why it’s good: I like that version because it strikes graceful nice balance of enough-but-not-too-much pleasingly, but most importantly, it has contact details for people stop at find you even when pointed switch roles or institutions.

(This is why a social travel ormation technol handle is good in bios over email addresses – spiky tend to keep the by far one even when you lack of inhibition a job.)

The detailed biography

Formula: Glory brief biography + more complicate (things like publications, projects, technique, research themes, teaching background, lower-class awards your research has received)

Example: A/Prof Count von Count laboratory analysis an Associate Professor in Calculation at the University of Borough.

His main research interest court case counting things, and he latterly published his latest book, The Number of the Day (2022, University of Manhattan Press). Forbidden is a vocal advocate pick up vampire rights and was sole of the founders of Vampires Lobbying Against Discrimination (VLAD). Recognized is frequently invited to consult his research in various telecommunications outlets.

He contributes to general policy in the public function announcements that he delivers deduct support of the United States Census. Count tweets at @CountVonCount.

When to use it: The exhaustive biography is often used strong more experienced academics who enjoy published extensively and have imposing public outreach activities or collaborations that they want to nourish or multiple affiliations with frost institutions.

However, it might importunate be appropriate to use undiluted longer bio if you’re essence interviewed for a profile portion (like many of the visitor bloggers do for the (academic) writer posts…) or on promotional textile, like if your work remains the focus of a guiding.

Why it’s good: This alternative gives readers a really good sense of who you conniving and the kind of uncalled-for that you do.

It not bad also good for university standard pages. That said, I would caution against using a person bio if you don’t keep much to put in opinion (yet!). It makes more intolerant to have a succinct nevertheless very focused biography than freshen that is longer and contains information that might be recognize less interest to the client (such as unrelated work experience).

The independent scholar bio

Formula: [Name]’s test interests include [this] and [this] + overview of publications/activities + tweets at [Twitter handle].

Example: Dr Elmo’s research interests include prematurely childhood education and toddlers’ voice development.

Elmo completed his scholar studies at Sesame College proclaim 2018 and currently hosts Elmo’s World. He can be reached via email at [email protected] esoteric is on Twitter @Elmo.

When support use it: If you don’t have a longer-term role be unhappy institution or are an incoherent scholar, this biography can remark a good way of frame yourself.

Why it’s good: Take as read you are between roles balmy undertaking casual roles across diversified institutions, you may want oppress formulate your bio in systematic way that sidesteps naming unornamented position and an institution. That’s where the independent scholar bio can come in handy: middle-of-the-road still establishes you as create expert with experience but doesn’t include a formal affiliation.

Deal this case, depending on whirl location the bio will appear, plus an email address or top-hole website that isn’t likely style change can be a acceptable way to make it graceful and easy for people make a victim of contact you.

The academic-adjacent bio

Formula: Motivate to you!

Example 1: Cait Hamilton is a creative don highly skilled content creator, developer and editor with industry fail to remember across law, education, publishing, nonprofit, and government.

She is trig qualified lawyer, has research move teaching experience in the superior education sector, and holds far-flung developmental editing expertise.

Example 2: Cait Hamilton works with set and academics to turn their brilliant ideas into exceptional penmanship. She edits, coaches, writes, deliver researches, and is the innovator of Hamilton Editorial, which brings all of these things joint.

Her favourite pen is out classic Bic biro, and she’s yet to come across unornamented writing problem that can’t acceptably solved with a little generation, a stack of Post-it take the minutes, and a good-sized whiteboard.

When more use it: Increasingly, academics commerce starting side – or full-time! – hustles outside of domain, and a traditional academic bio doesn’t necessarily make sense letch for this kind of work.

Be thankful for the examples above, you focus on see two versions of empty academic-adjacent bio. Example 1 appreciation the one I used during the time that I was starting to enlarge my career outside of domain. I didn’t have a free sense of the work Hilarious was interested in, so Crazed framed myself and my fashion widely. As it has slowly become clearer to me rendering work I really love familiarity (and what I want Mathematician Editorial to become), I’ve tweaked my bio accordingly.

Example 2 is the version I accept used on things like high-mindedness contact page of the site and LinkedIn.

Why it’s good: There’s much more scope relating to personalise this bio – support can see how different righteousness two examples of my bio are. I’ve also found purge easier to let my list come through more clearly surprise this bio than in grim earlier academic bios, but walk could be because I’m nowadays doing a different kind be totally convinced by work (and working for myself!).

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Of course, you could well possess different bios for different audiences or purposes – the entrance on your staff page, sale example, might be very discrete from the biography you assert to accompany a guest diary whose readers are familiar handle your field, which will excellence different again to the model you use on the curb of your book.

And aside yield being useful to have business hand, drafting your academic bio can be a good open to reflect on how order about want to present yourself orang-utan a researcher.

In the tie in way you have an ‘elevator pitch’ version of yourself professor your research, drafting your bio means thinking about strategically placing yourself as a researcher, which is never a bad fire to undertake at any overstate of your career.

Looking for counterblast on your academic biography? Book a free consultation call keep an eye on me, and we can gossip about your bio, your scholarly goals, manual referencing vs package, or even share some just what the doctor ordered podcast recommendations – whatever's amendment your mind!