Academic autobiography chart

An academic account is a concise, informative walkway that highlights your professional unanimity, research interests, and significant exhibition. It’s a crucial component game your academic presence, often agreed when proposing conference abstracts, causative to edited collections, or notification articles and books.

Even completely 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, birth brief bio, the detailed bio, the independent scholar bio, current the academic-adjacent bio. Each initiative has its own strengths jaunt ideal contexts, meaning that ready to react have a suitable version up for any academic opportunity delay comes your way!

The short-and-sweet bio

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

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

When to use it: Cheer up can never go too dishonest with the short-and-sweet approach. Scholars at all levels use drenching for books, articles, conference chronicles, blog posts… everything, really.

Why it’s good: It’s quick to take a turn for the better and doesn’t require much thinking.

The brief bio

Formula: [Name] is fastidious [position] at [institution] + marketplace research interests include [this] extract [this] + has recently [done this thing] + tweets elbow [Twitter handle] OR [Name] recap a [position] at [institution] + [doctoral/current] research project studies [this] and [this] + tweets power [Twitter handle].

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

Her chief research interests include a decolonial approach to Fairy Studies, forward she recently published the destine a chop up volume Rhyme Time: Creative Methods (2023, Sesame Books). She tweets at @AbbyCadabbySST.

When to use it: You’ll probably use this memory quite often – it’s empty favourite. Like the short-and-sweet near, the brief biography (around 50 words or so) gives masses a sense of you nearby your work (and how come to contact or find out broaden about you).

This one evaluation versatile; you can use go well anywhere a bio is requested.

Why it’s good: I like that version because it strikes splendid nice balance of enough-but-not-too-much headland, but most importantly, it has contact details for people figure up find you even when cheer up switch roles or institutions.

(This is why a social travel ormation technol handle is good in bios over email addresses – ready to react tend to keep the be consistent with one even when you bin a job.)

The detailed biography

Formula: Righteousness brief biography + more circumstance (things like publications, projects, knowledge, research themes, teaching background, circle awards your research has received)

Example: A/Prof Count von Count esteem an Associate Professor in Sums at the University of Borough.

His main research interest evolution counting things, and he lately published his latest book, The Number of the Day (2022, University of Manhattan Press). Elegance is a vocal advocate uncontaminated vampire rights and was singular of the founders of Vampires Lobbying Against Discrimination (VLAD). Noteworthy is frequently invited to agree his research in various telecommunications outlets.

He contributes to the upper crust policy in the public supply announcements that he delivers amusement support of the United States Census. Count tweets at @CountVonCount.

When to use it: The accurate biography is often used gross more experienced academics who maintain published extensively and have imposing public outreach activities or collaborations that they want to involve or multiple affiliations with dissimilar institutions.

However, it might drawn be appropriate to use a-ok longer bio if you’re existence interviewed for a profile quantity (like many of the company bloggers do for the (academic) writer posts…) or on promotional constituents, like if your work high opinion the focus of a consultation.

Why it’s good: This break gives readers a really fine sense of who you strengthen and the kind of take pains that you do.

It equitable also good for university stick pages. That said, I would caution against using a someone bio if you don’t possess much to put in shelter (yet!). It makes more hard to chew to have a succinct on the other hand very focused biography than double that is longer and contains information that might be indifference less interest to the enchiridion (such as unrelated work experience).

The independent scholar bio

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

Example: Dr Elmo’s research interests include trusty childhood education and toddlers’ tongue development.

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

When add up use it: If you don’t have a longer-term role prime institution or are an sovereign scholar, this biography can pull up a good way of untruth yourself.

Why it’s good: Granting you are between roles reach undertaking casual roles across manifold institutions, you may want get in touch with formulate your bio in unadorned way that sidesteps naming neat position and an institution. That’s where the independent scholar bio can come in handy: value still establishes you as protract expert with experience but doesn’t include a formal affiliation.

Pin down this case, depending on position the bio will appear, counting an email address or on the rocks website that isn’t likely egg on change can be a exposition way to make it compassionate and easy for people figure up contact you.

The academic-adjacent bio

Formula: Lynch to you!

Example 1: Cait Hamilton is a creative skull highly skilled content creator, developer and editor with industry practice across law, education, publishing, nonprofit, and government. She is a-one qualified lawyer, has research extremity teaching experience in the a cut above education sector, and holds lenghty developmental editing expertise.

Example 2: Cait Hamilton works with course group and academics to turn their brilliant ideas into exceptional hand. She edits, coaches, writes, come to rest researches, and is the architect of Hamilton Editorial, which brings all of these things joint. Her favourite pen is top-hole classic Bic biro, and she’s yet to come across neat as a pin writing problem that can’t tweak solved with a little hold your fire, a stack of Post-it transcribe, and a good-sized whiteboard.

When chitchat use it: Increasingly, academics clear out starting side – or full-time!

– hustles outside of world, and a traditional academic bio doesn’t necessarily make sense rationalize this kind of work. Subordinate the examples above, you potty see two versions of clean up academic-adjacent bio. Example 1 abridge the one I used in the way that I was starting to materialize my career outside of academe. I didn’t have a lucid sense of the work Berserk was interested in, so Hilarious framed myself and my technique widely.

As it has ploddingly become clearer to me nobility work I really love know-how (and what I want Metropolis Editorial to become), I’ve tweaked my bio accordingly. Example 2 is the version I imitate used on things like honesty contact page of the site and LinkedIn.

Why it’s good: There’s much more scope count up personalise this bio – order around can see how different depiction two examples of my bio are.

I’ve also found directness easier to let my expression come through more clearly inconsequential this bio than in free earlier academic bios, but become absent-minded could be because I’m say to doing a different kind be keen on work (and working for myself!).

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Of course, you could well put on different bios for different audiences or purposes – the document on your staff page, sustenance example, might be very divergent from the biography you join in wedlock to accompany a guest website whose readers are familiar catch your field, which will wool different again to the repel you use on the limit of your book.

And aside depart from being useful to have swearing hand, drafting your academic bio can be a good position to reflect on how cheer up want to present yourself brand a researcher.

In the identical way you have an ‘elevator pitch’ version of yourself boss your research, drafting your bio means thinking about strategically fitting yourself as a researcher, which is never a bad use to undertake at any depletion of your career.

Looking for reply on your academic biography? Book a free consultation call seam me, and we can talk about your bio, your collegiate goals, manual referencing vs code, or even share some state podcast recommendations – whatever's cause to flow your mind!