A 2023 global survey of more than 900 faculty members found that 33 percent are “often or always” physically exhausted, 38 percent are emotionally exhausted and 40 percent are just worn-out. The constant pressure to conduct research, secure grants and fellowships, attend conferences, and publish or perish is only part of the story. There is, additionally, the immense responsibility to teach and mentor students who are facing their own mental health crises.
In the inescapable race to beat the tenure clock and, once tenured, move to the next rung of the ladder while staying relevant and recognizable in our fields, faculty members need to take a pause. We must slow down to strengthen our mental health, ensure student success and produce meaningful scholarship.
Some might ask how slowing down will help us keep up. How will we survive in academia if we are slow to publish in high-impact journals, or present our research in international forums, or participate in faculty development opportunities, or mentor multiple students, or be on several significant boards and committees? We will, if we do not equate slowness with being lazy or unproductive and, instead, understand it as the pace and the process that allows us to function and create deliberately, contemplatively, while resisting exhaustion and burnout.
In my international conflict management classroom at Kennesaw State University, I encourage my students—future peacemakers—to think about slow peace. In my research on feminist agency in violent peripheral geographies, I deliberate on how, in zones of ongoing conflict, active resistance must (and does) surface in response to direct and immediate violence. But this only addresses the symptoms; in the urgency of the moment, what is not—and cannot—be addressed is the structural violence that results from a lack of cultivating peace as a way of life. Only by slowing down to reflect on, and gradually dismantle, the tools that perpetuate cultures and structures of violence can we enable enduring peace, ensure the well-being of the communities in conflict and reduce the recurrence of everyday violence.
As I move deeper into decolonial feminist peace in my scholarship, teaching and practice, I recognize the university depends on some of the same tools of violence and patriarchal control that are used to perpetuate the colonial and postcolonial conflicts that we study in my classroom. For example, the “fast-paced, metric-oriented neoliberal university” makes constant demands on faculty members’ time and effort, ensuring we are exhausted and preoccupied with “keeping up.” To meet its numerical expectations, we often sacrifice our “intellectual growth and personal freedom”; we rarely pause to reflect on the quality and real-world impact of our output or the toll it takes on us. Exhausted people rarely have the time or energy for community and rest, which are essential not only for individual well-being but also for collective resistance to slow violence.
Similarly, colonial capitalists initiated my ancestors in Assam, in the peripheral northeast region of India, into the plantation (tea) and extraction (coal, oil) economies by weaponizing productivity and exhaustion. They denigrated our traditional lahe lahe way of life that was based on living gently, slowly and in organic harmony with the planet and its people. The nontribal people of Assam embraced capitalism and the culture of “hard work” and exhaustion. They also aligned with the colonizers to designate the tribal peasants who stayed connected with their ancestral lands and refused to work in the plantations as “lazy natives.”
This process of ethnic fragmentation started by the colonizers was subsequently exploited by the post-/neocolonial Indian state to diffuse and dissipate resistance against itself as it continued to extract the communal resources of the ethnic people of Assam and its neighboring northeastern states while ignoring their customary laws and political rights and governing this peripheralized region through securitization and militarization. The historical, horizontal conflicts between the many communities of the Northeast undermined their necessary, vertical resistance against the Indian state. Meanwhile, on the Indian mainland, Assam is still derogatorily referred to as “the lahe lahe land” and people from the entire Northeast region are subjected to discrimination and racist violence.
Building solidarities across marginalized entities alone can successfully challenge larger structures of oppression—whether racism, colonial violence or academic capitalism—that continue to thrive while we remain divided. In the conflict zone I call home, I advocate for addressing the slow and sustained violence that historically eroded indigenous ways of peaceful coexistence between communities. I propose ways of building peace by reintroducing customary nonviolent structures and cultures into everyday practices of communities, allowing community members to reconnect with each other and with nature and the environment.
For example, traditional slow crafts like weaving organic cotton and silk fabrics involved the entire community while benefiting individual members and protecting the planet. Reviving these practices would slowly, but radically, disrupt the cycle and progression of violence and societal fragmentation.
Within the academy, too, we can practice slow peace. My individual resistance began when I started questioning my sense of guilt and self-doubt about being unproductive or “slow.” Just as my precolonial ancestors did, I too realized that my self-worth is not tied to my productivity; I slowed down. This deepened my scholarship and made it more deliberate as I connected it to my embodied, intergenerational history. My approach to scholarship also grew more intentional as I re-examined its real-world impact.
At the same time, I recalled that my lahe lahe culture valued rest and resting in community through finding connections with people, engaging in communal joy and being in nature. I moved away from commodified self-care products and apps and took more mindful breaths during my morning yoga. Now I am more energized in the classroom, where I practice laughter and joy with my students while encouraging them to build an empathetic and mutually caring classroom culture. They bring genuine engagement and produce strong work that they take ownership of. I have also added nature walks with emotional support coworkers, aka new friends, to my routine. Our conversations have led to research collaborations and several creative engagements with the local community.
If, as Audre Lorde says, self-care is “warfare,” it is no less a war to attempt to build a community of care involving colleagues and students in institutions and settings that are engineered to facilitate isolation by emphasizing increasingly demanding personal achievements tied to hierarchies of power and privilege. As I continue to deliberately and strategically work on decolonizing my academic praxis, I am convinced that within the academy and outside—where our knowledge-making has consequences—the quicker we begin slowing down, the sooner we will reap the benefits of the lahe lahe life.
Uddipana Goswami is author of Conflict and Reconciliation: The Politics of Ethnicity in Assam (Routledge 2014) and Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries: Marginality, Masculinity and Feminist Agency (Routledge 2023). Gendering Peace earned an honorable mention in the International Studies Association’s Peace Section’s 2025 Best Global South Scholar Book Award. She teaches at the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development at Kennesaw State University.
The women’s tournament officially kicks off Friday.
Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos/Getty Images
Women’s basketball has experienced a surge in popularity of late, and this year is no different. The Athletic reported that regular season viewing of women’s college basketball was up 3 percent on ESPN—even if this year’s Big Ten championship didn’t quite hit the record-breaking viewership of 2024’s, fueled by fans of then–University of Iowa point guard Caitlin Clark.
Here at Inside Higher Ed, though, we celebrate the start of March Madness a little differently from the 1.44 million people who tuned in earlier this month to this year’s Big Ten championship face-off between the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. For every tournament since 2006, we’ve created a bracket of who would take home the trophy if the winners were selected based on academic, rather than athletic, achievement.
If you’re new here (or you didn’t see the men’s bracket from yesterday), here’s how it works: Matchups are decided by which team had the higher academic progress rate—the NCAA’s own metric for measuring academic performance—based on the most recent data available, from 2022–23. The academic progress rate measures student athlete retention and academic eligibility, though some outside experts have criticized the metric for painting an incomplete picture of a team’s academic achievement.
There are, inevitably, at least a handful of ties every year. In those cases, we used several different graduation metrics to select winners. First, we used the team’s 2023–24 graduation success rate, which shows whether athletes graduated within six years of entering an institution. If teams tied again, we then turned to the teams’ federal graduation rates, which are more inclusive than the NCAA’s metric. Finally, when teams were matched up on all three of those measures, we turned to the institution’s overall GSR across their athletics programs.
It’s worth noting that federal graduation rate data is not available for Ivy League teams, so for GSR ties involving Ivies, we skipped right to the overall GSR metric. That caused some chaos in a bracket that ended up seeing a total of seven ties featuring Ivy League institutions.
Another note on methodology: Although two of the First Four games were decided before publication, we used academic metrics to select the winners of those matchups as well.
This tournament was intense. There were not two, not three, but four matchups in the second round in which both teams had perfect APRs of 1,000. Kudos to those teams!
The championship matchup was between two Ivies, Harvard University and Columbia University, both of which had perfect APRs and GSRs and whose overall GSRs were perfectly matched at 99. We’ve never seen this before in Inside Higher Ed’s 19 years of academic March Madness, so, although not ideal, we had to resort to a (virtual) coin flip. Naturally, Harvard was heads, because both start with “H.”
But, in the end, we got tails. Congratulations to the Columbia Lions—who have now won Inside Higher Ed’s academic tournament two years in a row!
March Madness officially begins Thursday with a match-up between the University of Louisville and Creighton University.
Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images
No shame if you forgot National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division I basketball championships were coming up—after all, this March has been filled with more than enough madness in higher ed, even without paying attention to basketball.
Nonetheless, the biggest event in college sports kicks off this week. If you’ve been a little too concerned with the news cycle to fill out your bracket, we’re here to help. Every year since 2006, Inside Higher Ed has determined which teams would win in the men’s and women’s tournaments if the results were based on academic, rather than athletic, performance.
To determine the winners, we used the NCAA’s key academic performance metric, known as the academic progress rate, for the 2022–23 academic year, the most recent data available. The academic progress rate measures student athlete retention and academic eligibility, though some outside experts have said the metric paints an imperfect picture of a program’s academic performance.
(Full disclosure, we did use this metric to determine the winners of the First Four matchups, even though two of the four games will be determined before publication Wednesday morning.)
If two colleges had the same APR, we used 2023–24 graduation success rate, the proportion of athletes who graduated within six years of entering an institution, as tiebreakers. If teams tied again, we turned to the team’s six-year federal graduation rates, which is a more inclusive metric.
Luckily, none of the teams tied in all three categories. Still, there were a handful of nail-biting victories. For instance, the Clemson University Tigers tied the Liberty University Flames on both the academic progress and graduate success rates. But when looking at the overall graduation rate, Clemson won by one point. After besting the Flames in the Final Four, the Tigers beat out the University of Louisville to win the whole thing.
Now, the Inside Higher Ed bracket likely won’t win you any money. But there’s no bad time to celebrate the academic achievements of student athletes alongside their athletic prowess.
Jennifer van Alstyne and Dr. Sheena Howard designed this live interactive virtual event for professors and researchers like you. Especially if you’ve ever felt like, “I don’t need to do this for me, but I should do this for my book” when it comes to your online presence. Or, if you worry about self-promotion but know your writing / research can help more people if you’re open to sharing it.
Join Dr. Sheena C. Howard and Jennifer van Alstyne for a90-minute virtual event to help academics and researchers amplify your work, attract media opportunities, and share your book in meaningful ways.
We hope you can join us on April 12, 2025 for Promoting Your Book Online for Academics. You’re invited!
What: 1.5 hour interactive workshop When: April 12, 2025 at 11:30am Pacific Time / 2:30pm Eastern Time Where: Live on Zoom (there will be a replay) With: Jennifer van Alstyne and Dr. Sheena Howard
A workshop for academics who have a book or research project you should be sharing with the world
April 12, 2025 on Zoom at 11:30am Pacific Time / 2:30pm Eastern Time. Sign up.
About the workshop
Promoting Your Book Online for Academics is on April 12, 2025 at 2pm Eastern / 11:30am Pacific Time. It will be recorded for when you can’t make it live.
You should sign up if you’re open to
Sharing your book (or your research project)
Opportunities for your book to be featured in media (but aren’t sure where to start)
Helping more people with the writing / research you already do
Aim to attract funding
Want to build partnerships or collaborations for your equity focused work
At the end of this workshop you’ll know what’s effective use of your time for media and online presence.
What’s included?
Our live interactive workshop is on April 12, 2025 on Zoom (1.5 hours)
Replay of the event (video and audio only if you prefer to listen)
Worksheet to help you take action and Resources guide to keep
A private scheduling link for your follow up consultation with Jennifer
What inspired this event
Hi, I’m Jennifer van Alstyne (@HigherEdPR). I’ve been working 1-on-1 with professors on their online presence since 2018. When I look back on the transformations my clients have gone through, there’s often an emotional journey, not just the capacity-building work we do for your online presence. Most of my clients are authors. The professor writers I work with want their words to reach the right people, but felt unsure about how to go about that online.
Your book deserves to reach the people you wrote it for. When I ask professors who haven’t promoted their book, “do you hope more readers find this book?” The answer is often “Yes,” even if the book is older. Even when the book didn’t sell as well as you may have hoped. Even when your book is out of print there are things you can do to have agency in sharing it online.
In 2021, Dr. Sheena Howard and I teamed up for an intimate live event that helped academics around the world. We’ve been wanting to do another one since. But we wanted something that was really going to help you. For years, authors have opened up to each of us about what stopped them from sharing their book for years. When we were brainstorming who we want to help most with this Promoting Your Book Online for Academics event, these are some of the stories that came up:
I thought I’d have more support in marketing my book from the press…but it seems to be mostly on me.
My publisher asked me to build up my social media presence for my new book…I’m not really a social media person.
My books in the past didn’t do well…I’m worried my new book won’t do well either.
I shared my book once. But I haven’t share it again since on socials.
I am unsure if it is too early (or too late) to promote my book.
If I want to promote my book, when should I be reaching out to media? Before the book launches? After the book launches? I don’t know where to start.
I don’t think anyone will care about my book.
I want to go on podcasts to talk about my book, but I haven’t done anything toward that, no.
Dr. Sheena C. Howard (@drsheenahoward), a Professor of Communication. She helps professors get media coverage and visibility through Power Your Research (without the expense of a publicist). She’s been featured in ABC, PBS, BBC, NPR, NBC, The LA Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more for her research on representation, identity, and social justice. Her book, Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation won an Eisner Award. The Encyclopedia of Black Comics, which profiles over 100 Black people in the comics industry. Her book, Why Wakanda Matters, was a clue on Jeopardy.
She’s a writer without limits. I’ve recommended Sheena to some of my clients because she’s someone who helps people move past the limits we sometimes set for ourselves as writers. The worries or beliefs that sometimes hold us back. She’s worked closely with writers and creatives to build their capacity, to have agency in your media presence so you can make an impact when it matters. You want visibility that makes a difference for you. That invites readers. That can attract opportunities when they’re aligned with with what you want for yourself and the world.
This event is for you even when you want to do it yourself for your online presence. You won’t have to work with us after the workshop ends. This live event is about implementable strategies, and finding focus for what makes sense for sharing your book or research project.
FAQs for Promoting Your Book Online for Academics
Frequently asked questions you may be wondering about.
Where is the workshop?
This is a live virtual interactive event on Zoom on April 12, 2025 at 11:30am Pacific Time / 2:30pm Eastern Time.
What if I can’t make it live?
At our last event, some people knew they wouldn’t be able to attend live when they signed up. A couple people also couldn’t make it live unexpectedly. If you’re unable to join us live on April 12, 2025, you’ll have everything you need.
Jennifer will email you the event replay when it’s finished processing. You’ll get a copy of the take home worksheet to help you take action and the resources guide. That email will also have your private scheduling link for a follow up meeting with Jennifer if you’d find space to chat about your online presence supportive.
Or, email Jennifer for a custom invoice at Jennifer@TheAcademicDesigner.com
Outside of the United States? We had people register from around the world last time. If you run into an issue checking out, Jennifer is happy to create an invoice for you through Wise. Email Jennifer@TheAcademicDesigner.com
This event is non-refundable. If something comes up and you’re unable to join us live on April 12, 2025, you’ll have everything you need.
Jennifer will email you the event replay when it’s finished processing. You’ll get a copy of the take home worksheet to help you take action and the resources guide. That email will also have your private scheduling link for a follow up meeting with Jennifer if you’d find space to chat about your online presence supportive.
Can I use professional development funds or research funds to pay for this event?
Yes. If a custom invoice would be helpful for you, please reach out to Jennifer@TheAcademicDesigner.com
I’m interested in working with Jennifer and Sheena privately. Is this event still for me?
Jennifer and Sheena team up for online presence VIP Days. And some of our clients have worked with us separately depending on your goals.
While I’m happy to see how we can work together, this is not a sales event. At our last event, people found having a bit of private space after the event was helpful. So we wanted to be sure you get that private follow up consultation too. If you’re interested in working with us, please do sign up for that Zoom call. We can save time to chat about what may be helpful for you.
This workshop isn’t in my budget…I still want a stronger online presence for my book / research.
Yay, I’m glad you found this page because I want that for you. You deserve a stronger online presence if that’s something you want for yourself. Best wishes for your online presence, you’ve got this! There are free resources here on The Social Academic blog to help you have a stronger online presence for your book and your research. You can search by category to find what’s helpful for you. You might start resources related to Authors and Books.
I don’t think this event is right for me, can I share it with a friend?
Yes! I’d love that. If this event isn’t right for you, but you think it may be helpful for your friend or colleague, please share it with them. We appreciate you!
Questions about this event? Please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m happy to answer your question, hesitation, or concern.
Jonathan Eburne calls the National Endowment for the Humanities’ posting of the executive orders regarding the promotion of gender, equity and environmental justice ideology an act of “capitulation” equivalent to “the ideological extension of a political party” (“An Open Letter to the NEH,” Feb. 28, 2025). I share his critical stance toward the executive orders and the spirit driving them. But his accusation against the NEH is unfair and normalizes a dangerous misreading of the scope of the orders that higher education must avoid.
The NEH chair and staffers are federal employees, bound to obey government directives. To refuse compliance would invite immediate termination of the agency’s talented, experienced staff and call the future of the agency into question. With them would go vital funding and stewardship for the humanities that sustains faculty, students, state humanities councils and members of the public.
To be clear, these orders apply across the federal government, and nothing in them is specific to the NEH. They do not apply to research and teaching; one (EO 14173) includes a carve-out for institutions of higher education.
By treating NEH projects as falling under the scope of the orders, Eburne implicitly assents to the notion that research and teaching are equivalent to promoting ideology. This is indeed the guiding belief in Florida, and it is shared by the current administration.
In fact, “promoting ideology” is not an accurate definition of scholarly or scientific inquiry, including the important work of teaching and doing research on gender, equity and the environment.
It is crucial that we stand up against attempts to define academics as promoters of ideology and thus as untrustworthy stewards of knowledge, or, as the vice president has put it, dedicated to “deceit and lies, not to the truth.” It’s malicious abuse of language designed to undermine people’s confidence in academia and in expertise in general. The right strategy is not to accept a bad definition—it’s to call out the definition as wrong and reject the labeling while these orders are litigated in the courts.
Joy Connolly is the president of the American Council of Learned Societies.
Tuition has increased faster than
inflation. State funding has increased faster than inflation.
Administrator salaries have increased faster than inflation. Yet, the
administration is demanding that the teachers, librarians, and
researchers who drive the university’s educational mission take real
wage cuts.
While everyone acknowledges the
financial challenges facing higher education, the UO is receiving more
money per student than ever before. If this money isn’t going toward
student education and knowledge creation, where is it going?
The Facts:
Quality Education Requires Investment in Faculty
The value of a University of Oregon degree depends on the quality of
its professors, instructors, researchers, and librarians. When faculty
wages erode due to artificial austerity, neglect, or slow attrition, it
affects not only the quality of education and research, but also the
long-term value of a UO degree for students and alumni alike.
UO faculty salaries rank near the bottom among our peer institutions in the American Association of Universities (AAU).
United Academics has proposed fair wage increases that would merely adjust salaries for inflation and restore them to pre-pandemic budget levels.
Despite pandemic-related learning loss, the administration is spending less on education per student (adjusted for inflation) than before COVID-19.
The administration has prioritized administrative growth over academic excellence, while faculty have taken on increased workloads since the pandemic.
Faculty Sacrificed to Protect UO—Now It’s Time for Fair Wages
During the pandemic, faculty agreed to potential pay reductions to
help UO weather an uncertain financial future. We made sacrifices to
ensure the university could continue to serve students. Now, as we
bargain our first post-pandemic contract, the administration refuses to
offer wage increases that:
Cover inflation
Acknowledge additional faculty labor since the pandemic
Recognize our unwavering commitment to UO’s educational mission
Our Vision for UO: Excellence in Teaching & Research
The University of Oregon’s mission is clear:
“The University of Oregon is a comprehensive public research
university committed to exceptional teaching, discovery, and service. We
work at a human scale to generate big ideas. As a community of
scholars, we help individuals question critically, think logically,
reason effectively, communicate clearly, act creatively, and live
ethically.”
Our vision for the University of Oregon is one where the educational
and research mission are at the fore; an institution of higher learning
where we attract and maintain the best researchers and instructors and
provide a world class education for the citizens of Oregon and beyond.
Yes, this will take a shift in economic priorities, but only back to
those before the pandemic. Our demands are neither extravagant nor
frivolous. Our demand is that the fiduciaries of the University of
Oregon perform their primary fiduciary duty: support the mission of the
University of Oregon.
Why This Matters Now
We are currently in state-mandated mediation, a final step before a
potential faculty strike. Striking is a last resort—faculty do not want
to disrupt student learning. However, the administration’s arguments for
austerity do not align with the university’s financial situation or
acknowledge the increased faculty labor and inflated economic reality
since the pandemic. If the administration does not relent, we may have
no choice but to strike.
We Need Your Support
A strong show of support from the UO community—students, parents,
alumni, donors, legislators and citizens of Oregon and beyond—can help
pressure the administration to do the right thing.
This article isn’t about which is better for you: faculty profile or LinkedIn profile. It would be great for your online presence if you had both. Hi, I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. I help Higher Education faculty, researchers, and scientists with their digital presence for academics.
I just got off a call with an Associate Professor client. We worked on both his LinkedIn profile and faculty profile together (which just went live, yay!). This professor is really an in-person networker. When we 1st met he said, “people know me,” but if you searched online? At the time there wasn’t a comprehensive academic profile or online presence that could help people know who he is now.
Are you “not really a social media person” too? I’ve written about how I still recommend having a filled out LinkedIn profile if you’re an academic who “doesn’t want to be on social media.” It’s okay to not post on social media. It’s okay to lurk. It’s okay to like or repost without sharing original posts yourself. There are many ways to be on social media as an academic. And what feels right for you now may change in the future too. While I love personal academic websites as a long-term solution for professors, researchers, and scientists, having a website isn’t right for everyone.
However you choose to have an online presence (if that’s a goal for you at all) is fine. There isn’t a one size fits all solution for academics and researchers online.
As an academic who wants to have a stronger online presence, it’s a best practice to update your faculty profile and your LinkedIn profile at least 1/year.
Faculty Profile
A few years ago I asked a professor client to reach out to his college to ask if they had specific guidelines for their faculty profiles. We were redoing his academic bio. His done for you bio writing package included a new faculty profile. When we got on our call to chat about it, he started laughing, because when the college replied to him, they’d sent back his own faculty profile as “a great example.”
You can have a “great example” of a faculty profile, and still feel like it doesn’t reflect who you are and what you value as an academic now.
We grinned because the profile we envisioned for him was such an improvement. I say that not to disregard or belittle the work he’d done on his own faculty profile. Like most professors, he’d only ever written his own bios. But the time we created to talk through who he is, his story, and the change he’s working to create in the world? It made such an impact for the words we ultimately chose to share.
Your faculty profile is the 1st place for many of your students, colleagues, and people in your field will go to learn more about you. Some faculty profiles are robust with space for things like your bio, teaching, research, awards, and university media mentions. Others are streamlined with the details people most need like your job title and department and recent publications. Most professors I’ve chatted with express a lack of enthusiasm for their faculty profile, “it’s there, but it isn’t exciting.” And that’s fine, your professor or researcher profile on your university’s website doesn’t have to be enhanced unless you want it to be.
Problems faculty have run into updating their faculty profiles
I really like the mix of having both your faculty profile and your LinkedIn profile because professors who come to me with help for their online presence have occasionally reached out in distress:
“No one knew who to ask. I don’t think any of my colleagues have updated their faculty profile in years.”
“The person in our department who knew how to update the faculty profiles left, no one’s been able to update their profile in over a year.”
“My university moved all our faculty profiles to an intranet…that was my whole online presence.”
“They said they’re updating the faculty profile system. There won’t be an option to update my faculty profile for months.”
“The IT people said no emails on faculty profiles, so they’re gone. How are people supposed to get in touch with me?”
That last one had me on high alert. When I ask professors, “How do people usually get in touch with you?” They typically say something like, “People look up my faculty profile, my emails right there.”
Some universities have removed email addresses from faculty profiles in hopes of limiting phishing emails. A few have eliminated faculty profiles altogether. I get that there are IT limitations and protection needs that sometimes force these decisions. But I also deeply mourn the loss of connection that happened to each of those faculty members overnight. What things were lost? What connection?
It’s the same way I feel about adjunct professors, lecturers, and staff who make such an impact on campus, but often aren’t given space on their university website beyond their listed name.
You deserve a space online if you want one.
You can choose to have a stronger online presence if you want one.
You have agency in how you show up online.
Updating your faculty profile
The most frequent audience for your faculty profile is your students, colleagues, and people at your university. But those aren’t the only people who may visit your faculty profile. These are steps you can take to improve your faculty or researcher profile on your university’s website.
When you Google your name, does your faculty profile show up? Tip: Use a private or incognito browser mode for results not personalized to you.
Visit your faculty profile. What types of information are available? Does anything feel like it’s missing?
Make list of what needs to be updated. For instance, are the keywords for your research out of date? Do your recent publications appear there, or is that section a few years old? What about your bio? Does it still reflect who you are now? Many professors have only filled out a portion of their faculty profile, leaving unused sections blank. This is a good opportunity to improve your online presence by thinking about which section may be helpful at add in. What might help your students or other researchers in your field long-term? You don’t have to do the work to make these changes now. Making a list of the updates you want will help you prioritize your time later.
Find out who to contact about implementing your updates. You might do this before actually writing the updates in case you get word that “the system is changing” or “we’ll have a new format for faculty profiles soon.” I don’t want to you to makeover your faculty profile and then not be able to implement those changes. If you have the ability to make changes to your faculty profile yourself, skip this step.
Add a time to your calendar to gather materials, writing, or any update you want to have on your faculty profile. Block more time on your calendar than you anticipate just in case.
Good luck with updating your faculty profile! If you can only focus on 1 thing to improve, choose your academic bio. Your bio is a living document that can adapt to fit your needs. I had a great conversation with Dr. Echo Rivera where I share my top tips for your academic bio. I hope you find it helpful.
Don’t want to write your own academic bio?
There are many ways to have a stronger online presence as a professor or researcher. You don’t need to work with me to be more intentional about how you show up online as an academic. Not sure where you should start? Join my free online presence course to help you know where to focus your time and energy.
I’m happy to help you if you want a done for you academic bio too. It’s hard to be introspective about yourself. It may feel “uncomfortable” or like it’s time “too focused on me.” It’s okay if your brain wants to focus on other things instead of writing a new bio for yourself. That’s okay!
When we work together on done for you bio writing, you’ll get general use bios at different word lengths so you always have something ready to go. It also includes a custom bio like your new faculty profile done for you so you have a document ready to send to the person who implements changes at your university. If you want a “template” easy for you to update and adapt to their academic life for years to come, let’s chat about working together.
LinkedIn Profile
I like LinkedIn profiles for academics because they have many more capabilities than your faculty profile. You’re not job searching. You may be wondering, “does LinkedIn still make sense for me?” Let’s find out.
LinkedIn is great for faculty and researchers to…
Which of these benefits of having a LinkedIn presence as an academic stand out to you?
help people get in touch with you
show up in internet search results with a profile you control
share who they are and what they care about (in more engaging format than your CV)
connect with people in your research / teaching field
connect with your alma maters
be in network with your past affiliations
reconnect with former colleagues
find the people you’re looking for (LinkedIn has advanced search features)
connect with people across research fields and disciplines
connect with people in other regions around the world
invite deeper engagement with your research
help your research find an audience that cares
connect with editors and people in publishing
reach people who your research helps most
engage with the public
reach policymakers and practitioners
meet potential collaborators and partners
meet with potential community partners
meet potential corporate partners
attract potential research funders
be open to media requests and engagement
invite aligned opportunities for yourself and your students
help your students have a larger network
share a short recommendation for your student
connect with your alumni and former mentees with ease
reshare posts your audience may find useful
have conversations that invite people to participate (like in the comments of a post)
have conversations privately, via messages or groups
share media related to your Experiences and Education
show a bit more of your story than faculty profiles typically allow
start a newsletter
publish articles
Whoa, that list got longer than I expected. That was just a short brainstorm session too.
Did 1 or more of those feel like a good reason for you to be more intentional about your LinkedIn presence as an academic?
P.S. If you’re finding this article helpful, save it to your bookmarks for later. Please share it as a resource if you think a friend or colleague would find it helpful.
Here are 3 ways to get your LinkedIn profile if you want to do-it-yourself
In workshops for grad students and faculty, I’ve recommended blocking your calendar, to set time aside in your agenda for your LinkedIn profile. I’m someone who likes deep focused work, so that big chunk of time is often the best way for me to focus. How about you?
Here are 3 other possibilities to explore when it comes to fitting your LinkedIn profile into your academic life:
Do it section-by-section. When I 1st release my LinkedIn Profile for Professors and Researchers course, it was a challenge. Each week a new lesson was released helping you update just 1 section of your LinkedIn profile. Breaking your LinkedIn profile into smaller chunks let’s to create transformation for your online presence in a schedule that works for your life. Don’t feel like you need to change everything all at once. Any small change or improvement you make can help people better connect with your online presence as an academic.
Set a time to co-work on your LinkedIn profile. Are you someone that likes co-working? Get some friends, colleagues, or even your students together for a LinkedIn co-working session. You can each update your profiles, and even organize a quick review of each other’s at the end to check for typos. This can be virtual or in person, whatever you prefer.
Create intentional space for your lab, department, or school. Even though this is more work, you may have better motivation or more positive feelings about the time you take for your LinkedIn profile if you’re helping other people. You don’t need me to come in for a workshop at your university to create a professional development opportunity for LinkedIn you can all benefit from.
It’s okay if none of these work for you. If you’re someone who’s been wanting to do it yourself and you just haven’t? It’s okay to get support. Each of my professor clients who’ve chosen a done for you LinkedIn profile had the capability to do it themselves. Some even took my LinkedIn Profile course and found “I just can’t make the time,” and “I just want it done for me.” You can have a stronger online presence through LinkedIn, and we can totally work together on this.
For those of you wanting to DIY your LinkedIn profile as an academic, I hope these tips for your LinkedIn profile help you:
Don’t have the time for your LinkedIn profile?
Need to prioritize other things in your academic life? I totally understand. First, it’s totally okay if LinkedIn isn’t a goal for you right now. You don’t need a stronger online presence unless you want one.
Find free resources to help you on The Social Academic blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. You’ve got this (whenever you’re ready)!
My professor clients can do their own LinkedIn profile, for sure. They just don’t have the time. They’re not job searching. They want a stronger online presence. They’re busy academics who want to feel better connected with people in their field and reach people their research/teaching/leadership supports. They need to focus on their academic priorities and their personal ones, like their family.
You don’t have to do it yourself if you don’t want to. I’ll build your academic LinkedIn profile for you on your VIP Day. We’ll have a planning meeting to talk about your CV, review your existing profile, and chat about your goals. Then, on your VIP Day your LinkedIn profile will be fully done-for-you. After, we’ll meet on Zoom for your Review and Training Meeting, make any needed changes in real time. We’ll build your capacity and practice using LinkedIn for your specific needs. What works for one professor may not be a good fit for you, so we’ll talk about solutions personalized for your life/goals.
Who do I typically work with on the LinkedIn VIP Days service? You may want a done-for-you profile if you just don’t have the time to do it yourself (or you don’t want to). My LinkedIn profile clients have been
Mid career academics
Senior academics
Higher Ed administrators
Principal Investigators (PIs)
Early career researchers, we may create a greater impact for your academic life by partnering on done for you bio writing instead. Not that I wouldn’t be happy to do your LinkedIn profile for you. Just know that you don’t need to work with me for a great LinkedIn profile. I promise you can do this yourself if you want to.
If you’re like, “actually I don’t got this.” Or, “I know I’m not gonna do this on my own.” That’s okay. I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. I’ve been helping professors feel confident when showing up online since 2018 through personal websites and social media. I’m here to help you too.
Let’s chat on a no pressure Zoom call about your LinkedIn VIP Day for a done-for-you profile. Or, a 1 hour LinkedIn consultation with me. Schedule a time on my online calendar.
Brittany Trinh returns to The Social Academic featured interview series. We talk about how her thinking on websites for professors, scientists, and researchers has changed. We also talk about how her life has changed now that she’s back in grad school (and what that means for her online presence). Plus, hear about our Team VIP Day service for research lab websites. Read Brittany’s bio.
In this interview
Meet Brittany
Jennifer: Hi everyone. It is Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to The Social Academic. I’m here today with my friend and one of my business partners, Brittany Trinh. We’re talking about personal academic websites, research lab websites, websites for academics. Brittany, would you say hi and introduce yourself? Or, reintroduce yourself since you’ve already been a guest on our show?
Brittany: Hi everyone. My name is Brittany Trinh. Yeah, I feel like the last time I was on your show was maybe in like 2020 or something like that. It was a while ago.
Jennifer: Oh my goodness. It’s been that long and we’ve been friends ever since. I mean, Brittany, you were at my wedding this summer. I can’t believe how time has flown by and your life has changed. You’re back in grad school. Tell me about that.
Brittany: Yeah, so I was working and running my side business as a website designer at the time when we’ve met. Since then, I had started grad school in 2021. I am now a PhD candidate in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Jennifer: Amazing. I really like how you reached out and introduced yourself to me in the very beginning. I felt like there wasn’t a need to be in competition with each other. It was so nice to be able to have someone to talk with about something that we both care about, which is having an online presence when you’re a scientist or someone who’s in academia. And also, we’ve been able to work together and partner together on some fun projects.
Brittany: When I first started getting in the online space and I heard about you. When I saw you at first, I was kind of thinking like, “Oh, we are kind of competitors in a sense that we have similar services” and things like that. But after I thought about it and kind of learned more about the space, I figured at that time we had slightly different audiences. You were still more targeting professors and people who were further along, whereas I was trying to target with graduate students and earlier career. But obviously since starting grad school, a lot of my side business web design stuff has kind of been put on the back burner. I’m still kind of working on it here and there, and I love collaborating with you as of late. So that has been a really good kind of easing back into the web design business.
Jennifer: That’s really fun. And I love hearing about your grad school experiences on social media. What was it like to start sharing that part of your new lifestyle in your online space that was kind of different from how you were showing up before?
Brittany: When I was showing up before, I was mostly just sharing a lot of tips and information on Twitter at the time. That worked for some time. But once I got to grad school, I thought, first of all, I don’t want to just be known for websites anymore. But I also had to take a break because I wasn’t really sure about my scientific identity yet because I just started grad school, and even though I had worked in industry for some time, starting grad school made me feel like a beginner again. And actually it took me probably the last three-ish years or so to finally feel a little bit more confident about posting things on social media regarding grad school.
Because for me personally, I just didn’t really want to be just a PhD influencer. There’s a lot of PhD influencers. I follow them too because I like their contents motivating and things like that, of course. But there’s just certain aspects of it that I didn’t really align with. And, I didn’t want to create that type of content. It took me a really long time up until maybe last year to finally figure out, “Oh, actually I still do want to talk about some things about grad school and about being a scientist, being in STEM and all that. But it just looks a little bit different than how a lot of people are currently doing it.” That’s because a lot of people are also science communicators, so they’re communicating their research, which is great. But for me personally, that wasn’t exactly something that I wanted to do.
Jennifer: Oh, that’s so interesting because the way that I see websites is part of science communication. At least for scientists, it’s a way to communicate who they are and what they’re doing. And that’s something you’re so great at. It’s totally okay that it’s not an interest of yours when it comes to the other areas of your life. That’s so interesting to me. I’m curious if you’re open to it, would you share with me what aspect of influencer life maybe didn’t appeal to you? Because there may be people who are listening to this who are considering the same thing and hearing your thoughts might be really helpful for them.
Brittany: Yeah, I guess for me, a lot of it was just hearing the over romanticizing the lifestyle was one thing that I wasn’t really a fan of, especially without context. I love the aesthetic. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with study aesthetic and everything. So, I get it. It’s very appealing to see that type of content. But I think that when you create that type of content and you share that without sharing the context in which a PhD program happens. I guess what goes on in a PhD program, it can be a bit deceiving to say the least, or just a little bit. I don’t know what the right word is, but I just didn’t feel like that’s something I wanted to do. I think that it’s a good thing that they’re inspiring younger people or anybody who wants to pursue a PhD. I think that’s good to be a source of inspiration. But I think that for me, I didn’t want it to just be an aesthetic look like a lifestyle.
Jennifer: Yeah, I absolutely understand that. And what’s interesting to me is that if I came across your channel and didn’t know that you didn’t want to be an influencer, I would think that you’re quite realist in what you share about your PhD life. And, you even have a podcast about what it’s like to be in grad school. I think that there’s a difference between influencer in terms of the intention of creating partnerships and brand deals and maybe even gaining a certain type of following for being an influencer in that space. And then also just having influence over a space because you are more open about sharing your story. And I think that your openness is really refreshing because you do share maybe some of the negative experiences too, some of the struggles and some of the highlights. It feels very real every time I check out your social media stories. Yeah, I don’t know. That’s so refreshing for me. What was that like for you to decide to actually start posting about these things?
Brittany: That was kind of hard, actually. For the first two years, I think the way I described it to people was that I felt like I was kind of ‘in a shell.’ I was very withdrawn because a lot of my PhD struggles took up a lot of my mental capacity. I just really didn’t have the desire at all to show up and to be seen, and honestly, to be that vulnerable to so many people online and to show them I’m struggling. Because a lot of people, again, like I mentioned, were set up the aesthetic. Everyone looks like, “Oh, they’re having such a good time in their PhD, they’re accomplishing so much. Why don’t I feel that way? Why am I not doing X, Y, Z?”
What I realized recently was that I guess I could go through those times, but I didn’t have to share it in real time. I can still share it now, which is what I’m learning to do right now, which is part of this project I’m working on for my podcast. I’m trying to write a series or make it episode, whatever series of episodes of all the different struggles I’ve kind of gone through. And sharing my thought process through that and what I did, what I wish I did differently, so that hopefully people who listen to the podcast or future people who encounter the podcast can learn from it. And can see, I wouldn’t say the bad side of things, but just these are things that people don’t want to openly talk about. And I think that it does take time to get over it so that you have fully processed it in a way that you can talk about it in a more meaningful way than just, I guess venting about it. Because I never really want to come off that way, even though in real life in the moment, I’m just like, “Oh my God, this was so stressful. Why are things like this?”
But when I talk to other people, younger students and things like that, I have to actively reframe it in my mind. How do I make this useful or helpful to them? Or what can I take away from it? How can I improve through this experience? Which has been happening a lot recently.
Jennifer: You’ve been doing more mentoring yourself, haven’t you?
Brittany: Yeah, a lot of mentoring in terms of in the lab. I’ve had four undergrads so far, and I have two right now. And then I also do some mentoring for first year students. So when they come in, they have a lot of questions about how do I join a group? How do I talk to a professor? Which group should I join and what are things I should look out for and stuff like that. Whenever I give advice, I always preface it with, this was my experience, because I never want to come off as I know everything. I’m just being like, I’m just sharing my experience, and you can take away what you want to take away from it. Honestly, I feel like that’s the same approach I have for my podcast as well.
Beyond Your Science, a podcast for grad students and early career scientists
Jennifer: So who should subscribe to your podcast? What’s it called, and where can people find it?
Brittany: My podcast is called Beyond Your Science. It’s available on Apple Podcast and Spotify. It’s really for any graduate student or early career scientist who wants to explore the intersection between science, creativity, and entrepreneurship. And so those are some of the core pillars I talk about on my podcast. Grad school is just a part of it for now just because I’m in it, but that’s not giving advice on how to get into grad school or anything. One thing I really would love to focus on more in the future is kind of small businesses in STEM, just because I think that’s a really niche area that we don’t really hear a lot about when we’re in grad school. In grad school, we hear about becoming a professor or going to industry, and we also actually hear a lot about people going into startups and entrepreneurship and stuff.
But at least on the grad school level, I haven’t really heard a lot about people choosing a small business route after grad school. But because of getting to know so many academics on online over the years and seeing where they’ve gone, a lot of them have started their own businesses and things like that because of the flexibility, the freedom to do what they would like to pursue their own ideas. I think those are all things that we as graduate students, we really value. And so I kind of want to show more people that this is a possibility for you if you could consider it. Yeah.
How Brittany’s thinking about academic websites has changed
Jennifer: Oh, that’s so cool. That’s really exciting for me to hear. And that’s kind of the first time I’m hearing about this too. So I love that you shared that. Now, I’m curious, how has your thinking about websites changed since our last interview? It’s been a while. I know we’ve worked on websites together. Overall, how has maybe your thinking changed over time?
Brittany: Oh my God, that’s such a good question because let me tell you, when I first started, I had just gotten out of undergrad and I was starting my job. I was trying to convince grad students to create websites for their work. And at the time when I started four years ago before coming to grad school, I was just really baffled. I was like, why don’t you want to create websites for your work? Why aren’t you proud of your work? Because you’re doing cool stuff and you’re super qualified. But no amount of me encouraging them could really get them to change anything. So I would just be like, “Oh, well, whenever you’re ready, this information is here for you.” But now that I became a grad student, I understand why.
Jennifer: Oh, wait, wait. Tell me a couple of reasons why. Because there’s definitely grad students listening to this that are like, ‘I think that might be me.’
Brittany: Yeah. Okay. Because I have my website and my website has all my website design stuff, my podcast stuff. But for the longest time, I didn’t really want to talk about my research at all. I didn’t want to share it with people.
Jennifer: What’s your research on?
Brittany: My research is focused on polymer chemistry specifically. Right now, I’m learning or developing a method to make more make up this polymerization more environmentally friendly. Before that, I was learning about how polymers can be made stronger and tougher for high impact materials, aerospace equipment, military equipment, things like that. So I’m just really interested in polymers and how their mechanical properties are useful. But now, right now I’m mostly focusing on how to synthesize polymers in a more eco-friendly way.
Jennifer: I love that! And I love the environment, so that’s my favorite. What about that felt like you wanted to hold it back or hold that part of yourself back from sharing on your website, and have you shared it?
Brittany: I think it was because I just didn’t really have the tangible result to show: because I didn’t have a paper. I still don’t have a paper. I’m a fourth year student PhD candidate. I have no papers. It just reminded me of that Pride and Prejudice quote, “I’m 27 years old and I have no prospects.”
Jennifer: I love it. We’re both readers. We both love classical music. Brittany and I are good friends, and there’s so many reasons why.
Brittany: But seriously, that’s the reason why I feel so, I don’t want to say ashamed, but just a little bit hesitant to be like, ‘This is my research.” I haven’t published anywhere. I maybe presented at a conference, but that work is unpublished and I don’t know if that will be published anytime soon. All those reasons combined. Plus, just the way that just by the nature of the PhD experience. I just naturally feel more inadequate than before. Imposter syndrome, right? All those reasons combined makes me not want to own up to it. I guess at least professionally, it’s easy for me to just say, “I’m a Graduate Research Assistant, because that’s what I am on paper. But to be like, “I’m a scientist.” I don’t really know about that.
Jennifer: It feels like a stretch, even though that’s not true. You’re mentoring future scientists already [laughing].
Brittany: I’m doing science, more science than a normal person does. Even if I don’t feel that that way, I am already doing it. That’s kind of what I had to tell myself. Yeah.
Jennifer: So did you put it on your website?
Brittany: I finally did put it on my website.
Jennifer: Oh my goodness.
Brittany: Yeah, because I was like, oh, my bio has nothing about chemistry. So it’s just in my bio, it’s like a little blurb. It says, Brittany is a PhD candidate in chemistry. Her research focuses on synthesizing high impact polymers in a more eco-friendly way and leveraging their tough mechanical properties into industrial applications.
It was really hard to condense what I do into a couple of words that are easy to understand. On one hand, it felt like I was oversimplifying, but on the other hand, I was like, I’m not going to go into the details. If someone was really interested, they could ask. But that was also really hard because I was like, it makes it sound like what I do sounds really, I don’t know, noble and great? But I don’t feel that way on the day to day. You know what I mean? At least I assume a lot of graduate students probably feel some type of way about their research.
Jennifer: Oh my goodness. Professors feel that kind of way about their research. Let me tell you, that feeling of being unsure about how you’re talking about your research and the things you care about most? That doesn’t go away when you become a mid-career researcher or a senior researcher, and you might even struggle to talk about it the way that you feel when you’re retired. So I think that it’s something many people struggle with it. And I love that you shared what you wrote with us because it sounded great.
Brittany: Yeah. I used your tips from a previous podcast interview, I think with Dr. Echo Rivera.
Jennifer: Ooh. For anyone who is listening, we do talk about how to write an amazing conference speaker bio. That’s great for academics writing any kind of bio. So I hope you’ll check that out.
Updating her personal website
Jennifer: Now, your online presence has changed as your new life experiences and goals have popped up. One of the things that you did was redoing your website, and you just talked about adding in that bio. What prompted you to want to redo your website? I know as a website designer myself, that’s a project I’ve been putting off for so long. I need to do it. So what prompted you to do it?
Brittany: Yeah. For the longest time, I had started with all my services about website design or workshops about website design. And then as I was realizing I don’t really have the capacity to do this anymore, I started making those pages hidden. I didn’t want to highlight that anymore. And then just throughout grad school, I realized I don’t really know if I want to just leave it open for website design right now. So I kind of want to just make it very clear that I’m trying to build my personal brand instead. That my personal brand still includes website design tips, but that I’m not actively soliciting new clients.
And I think that has really helped because now on my website, it’s just me featuring my podcast, which is my main mode of sharing and building my personal brand through the podcast and also LinkedIn newsletter. Then also kind of just repackaging some of the things I already had, some of the resources I had so that it’s still useful to people, but it’s more organized. I finally did that a couple months ago. And I also did a podcast episode where I talked about the process of me deciding to do that. But again, it was also something that I had put off for the longest time too. Because school, life, all the other things that come first.
Jennifer: Exactly. Sometimes we have to prioritize all the other things, and it’s okay to put off the thing with your online presence as long as you need to. I love that Brittany made that list because what she was ready, she knew what she wanted to do.
Best Personal Academic Websites Contest returns in 2025
Jennifer: Now we have done, since we last did our interview, two annual Best Personal Academic Website Contests. It was so fun to be able to share some amazing websites from grad students, postdocs, early career researchers, people who were in research labs. Oh my goodness. There were just so many people who were curious to submit to this contest. Would you be open to doing another one with me next year? What do you think?
Brittany: Yeah, I love doing it. I love seeing how people show their research, show themselves through their websites. It’s very interesting to see how people interpret also website tips and then implement it on their website too. And I think also because we do it with Owlstown. Owlstown is [a website builder] made for academics. I think it’s really fun to see how people still are able to customize it to their own needs.
Jennifer: Brittany and I are both designers, and so we’re thinking about every little detail, but for so many people, all you need is a website. And it is totally amazing that Dr. Ian Li has created Owlstown, a free academic website builder that you can easily make your website in. What is it? Like 15 minutes? I mean, it’s really fast. We did it on that call.
Brittany: Yeah, it’s very fill in the blank type of [website design]. That’s what I told this to the grad students in my department too. I was like, if you guys need a website, just use this. It’s so fast and easy. You don’t need to think about the design.
Jennifer: Even if you do eventually want that fully designed website in the future, if you know it’s not on your list this year or next, I mean make an Owlstown website, it will create a stronger online presence for you like today.
Brittany: Yeah. And I also met Ian, around the same time I met you or reached out to him around the same time. I also had to test it out for myself before I recommended it to people. When I tested it out, it was in its early stages, and even in its early stages, I was like, wow, this is really good. And then over time, he started developing more features and things and I was like, sold. This is so good now.
Jennifer: Right? I love how responsive he is. If you have a question about it or a suggestion, some kind of feature that you want to see, if he thinks it’ll help people, he’ll try and make that feature happen. It’s so cool.
Jennifer: Now, research lab and group websites, that is something we’ve been teaming up on for VIP days where professors get a done-for-you website in one day. I mean, seriously, we gather the materials in advance. We have a Planning Meeting. We talk about things like website aesthetics and colors and stuff and what you want. But then Brittany and I, and my husband, Matthew, we team up, we create the website for you in just one day. Oh my goodness. Brittany teaming up with you on this has been amazing. It’s been so transformative. I’m honestly shocked by how much we’ve been able to get done in one day.
Brittany: Yeah, me too. I think it’s really nice to work in a team like this because before I had just been working on my own. I think the workflow of gathering all the content beforehand helps so much. Because then you know what needs to go on the page, and it just makes everything go by so much faster.
Jennifer: Exactly. Now we can totally work together. If you’re looking for that bigger done-for-you research lab website [Strategic Website Design service]. Brittany, and I may still be able to help with that, but Team Website VIP days is what I recommend for most research labs, especially if this is going to be your first website. It’s not like a redesign. So we only have a couple days left in 2024, but please reach out about the new year. We would love to work with you and help your research lab or group. Brittany, what should people know about their research lab website or group website? Do they need one? Who should consider this kind of service?
Brittany: If you are a professor who’s actively recruiting students, you definitely need a website. I remember even when I was looking for groups and such, or even students now when they’re coming in and they’re looking at professors, they check the website. They go and see when was it last updated? Are students graduating? Is your group still active? Because the student is trying to prepare as much as they can to know about the professor so that when they meet the professor, they can talk about the research or ask about active projects and how they can get involved. Or, talk about what skills they bring to the table and things like that. But it’s going to be kind of hard for them to do that if there’s no website. Or, if you just have a very broad research statement on your faculty page or something.
The other thing is that students may be interested in the general area of research, but they may not know exactly what the research work entails. Maybe some people will be like, “Oh, just read the papers.” But in all honesty, a lot of students when they’re coming in, they’re very overwhelmed with enrolling in classes, teaching classes, looking for a group, acclimating to their new city. Trying to also parse out which papers are relevant to current projects at the moment is also very difficult. I really advocate for professors to have this on their website: a very clear or recently updated Projects page with publications that are most relevant or recent so that the student can easily pick out. “Okay, let me read the update on this and see where, what they’re doing right now, where could I fit in,” and things like that. So definitely professors of any age that wants to get students interested in their work. And, especially younger professors. I think now a lot of younger professors are, they’re trying to build a personal brand and everything in addition to the research.
Jennifer: This is a great use of startup funds. You can pay with your university monies. So please don’t hesitate to reach out if you are interested in having a VIP Day website for your research group or lab.
Jennifer: Brittany has been so much fun to have you back on The Social Academic podcast. Is there anything you’d like to chat about or add before we wrap up?
Brittany: No, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed working on the VIP days with you because it lets me still be a part of the helping academics with their websites, but kind of more on the back end of things. That just helps me as a graduate student right now because I’m just not able to do the front facing stuff at the moment.
Jennifer: Yeah, we’re perfect partners on this. And Dr. Makella Coudray, whose research lab website we did recently. We just had a workshop with her research group and she said that she now feels like her online presence is a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s a 10, and her website is a huge part of that. It makes her feel really good about her research and it makes her lab really excited to help share it. So I’m just so proud of the work that we’ve been able to do together so far, and excited for all the work to come.
Brittany: Yeah, me too.
Jennifer: Brittany, thank you so much for coming on today’s show.
Brittany Trinh is a Vietnamese-American website designer and chemist. She helps enterprising scientists, science communicators, and academic entrepreneurs create a website that integrates your creativity and expertise. Brittany knows when your website reflects the awesome things you do within and beyond STEM, it helps you forge your own path.
She hosts the Beyond Your Science Podcast, where she talks about integrating science, entrepreneurship, and creativity within and beyond STEM, from her own experiences and interviews with other scientists and small-business owners. Listen to the Beyond Your Science Podcast.
Brittany is a PhD candidate in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on synthesizing high-impact polymers in a more eco-friendly way and leveraging their tough mechanical properties into industrial applications. She received her BS in Chemistry with a minor in Psychology from the University of Houston. Follow her research on Google Scholar.
When she’s not in the lab, she’s probably playing piano or violin, watching slice-of-life anime, or cooking some kind of noodle.
Ideas for Your Online Presence Before, During, and After Your Talk or Presentation
The best time to share about your upcoming talk or presentation is before it happens. Some people find that their most engaged post on social media is announcing that you’ve submitted your abstract to speak (or your publication). People are excited by the possibility and what you care about. Telling your story of your upcoming speaking engagement is a great way to do that.
Sharing on social media can start early, but I don’t want you to think it’s the only way to help your online presence and the people coming to your talk. You’re going to explore many ideas today, but you don’t have to try all of them. I hope that there’s at least one idea that resonates with you and you’d feel comfortable trying it yourself.
Before your speaking engagement
When you submit an abstract for or are invited to speak
Add your website URL and social media handle to your bio. This will help people find you before, during, and after your presentation.
I’ve just submitted an abstract to speak at…
Announce that you’ve submitted – If you’ve been invited to speak, a good time to share on social media is when you’ve agreed or committed to that engagement. It’s great to add your social media handle and a link to your personal academic website if you have one, along with your bio. You might add that information to your CV.
Connect with people before you go
Once your talk is confirmed, you can add it to your website and you might take time to connect with your fellow panelists or event organizers before the event.
Conference Hashtag
If there is one, you can check out the conference hashtag and make plans with people who will also be at the event that you want to see, especially if you live in different cities or countries.
Business cards
If you have a business card, add your social media handle and website there is a good idea.
Share your talk on social media
When you’re sharing your talk on social media, people need more information than you expect. They need to know what your talk is about, when your talk is to know if they can attend, what the event is, and any link where they can learn more information. This is something you can share on any social media platform or across all your platforms.
Some professors hesitate to share their upcoming talk on Facebook where they may have a more personal audience, but these people are excited by what you care about when it comes to your research and how you choose to spend your energy. You might include , on all social media posts, any definition or story that helps people better understand why this talk or research matters to you.
Tag people or organizations that are related to your talk or event.
The conference hashtag can be added to your post about your talk but you can also add a hashtag that relates to the topic of what you are presenting on.
You can share the post about your talk before, during or after the event.
Create a graphic or infographic
If you create a graphic or share an image to go with your talk, a great resource is Writing image Descriptions on Accessible Social – which helps you create social media posts accessible for people with disabilities.
These are ideas are for your online presence and networking while a conference or event is happening.
Check out the conference hashtag, again
If you checked out the event hashtag, you might find that people weren’t using it. Once the event starts, you can start using the conference hashtag and check it out! See if there is a conversation you want to be part of, or an event you want to check out.
Be open about your online presence
The best thing you can do for your online presence while at an in person event, is to be open that you have a website or that you’re on social media.
Help people find and connect with you
You can make this easier for people by making a QR code that helps people go to your website, have this info on a business card, create a hand out with information or resource about your talk (that includes people need to your online presence) , or use an end slide in your presentation to help people connect with you after the event is over.
Resources to take home and share
When you create a resource like a handout or links /slides to share, that can go on your personal academic website. They can also be shared on social media using that conference hashtag to help people find this resource that you’ve already taken the time to gather.
Will this be recorded?
Ask if there is going to be a recording. Sometimes, there isn’t an official recording but you can ask if you can record yourself.
Stay connected once you’re gone
Connect with people you meet or you like and admire on social media, while at the conference. Helps others be more likely to learn about you.
It’s okay if you don’t do any of that too
I have never had time for any of that at conferences, personally. In person events can be overwhelming for me as an introvert. Because of that, I don’t have the brain capacity to remember things like take a photo, much less record some videos.
Anything I just talked about – some of those things can be prepped in advance others you don’t have to do live (you can do afterward)
Next are ideas you can do after your presentation or talk is over.
After your talk is over
Record your talk
Whether there was a recording of your talk or not, you could always record your talk and slides using zoom, then post the video to your website or social media. There are options to share the full version of your talk, if you like to. You can just share the title slide, or full text version of the talk, or even the full slides.
Connect with people when you’re back at home
If you didn’t connect with people during the event, sometimes connecting AFTER the event is easier. You can look at the conference hashtag. Look through the business cards you collected. See the conference program and look at the bios to see who is on social media.
Create and/or share resources
If you didn’t have resources to share at your talk, if there are things you want people to know after the fact, you can create a graphic or handout that is shareable on social media or a page on your website.
Celebrate other people
While you can post about your own talk, you can also post about your panel and thank the conference and event organizers. If you want to participate in the conference community but not want to talk about your own talk, you can celebrate others instead. It’s a great opportunity for PIs to celebrate their lab members or grad students who are at the event. There are so many ways to celebrate people instead of yourself, if that feels comfortable or more exciting for you.
These don’t have to be professional shots. A messy desk shot or photo of you working on your slides or going over your notes on the plane. Something that feels quick or easy to you.
Take pictures during the event
Snap a photo of things you see, people you meet, friends you catch up with. Ask someone to take photos of you while you’re speaking or pose at the conference.
You could record a video of your talk
This can be before, during, or after the event.
You can record a video about your talk
Record a short video introducing your talk and the main takeaways. This video is especially for people who couldn’t be there live for your presentation.
Record some b-roll
If you like video, record b-roll video. Take a sip of coffee, getting ready to speak, short travel clips, video of fellow panelists or friends. These might be put into a longer video or Instagram reel.
But these might feel like too much – so even though they are fun ideas, don’t be stressed if you do none of them.
Ideas for Your Online Presence Before, During, and After Your Talk or Presentation
The best time to share about your upcoming talk or presentation is before it happens. Some people find that their most engaged post on social media is announcing that you’ve submitted your abstract to speak (or your publication). People are excited by the possibility and what you care about. Telling your story of your upcoming speaking engagement is a great way to do that.
Sharing on social media can start early, but I don’t want you to think it’s the only way to help your online presence and the people coming to your talk. You’re going to explore many ideas today, but you don’t have to try all of them. I hope that there’s at least one idea that resonates with you and you’d feel comfortable trying it yourself.
When you submit an abstract for or are invited to speak
Add your website URL and social media handle to your bio. This will help people find you before, during, and after your presentation.
I’ve just submitted an abstract to speak at…
Announce that you’ve submitted – If you’ve been invited to speak, a good time to share on social media is when you’ve agreed or committed to that engagement. It’s great to add your social media handle and a link to your personal academic website if you have one, along with your bio. You might add that information to your CV.
Connect with people before you go
Once your talk is confirmed, you can add it to your website and you might take time to connect with your fellow panelists or event organizers before the event.
Conference Hashtag
If there is one, you can check out the conference hashtag and make plans with people who will also be at the event that you want to see, especially if you live in different cities or countries.
Business cards
If you have a business card, add your social media handle and website there is a good idea.
Share your talk on social media
When you’re sharing your talk on social media, people need more information than you expect. They need to know what your talk is about, when your talk is to know if they can attend, what the event is, and any link where they can learn more information. This is something you can share on any social media platform or across all your platforms.
Some professors hesitate to share their upcoming talk on Facebook where they may have a more personal audience, but these people are excited by what you care about when it comes to your research and how you choose to spend your energy. You might include , on all social media posts, any definition or story that helps people better understand why this talk or research matters to you.
Tag people or organizations that are related to your talk or event.
The conference hashtag can be added to your post about your talk but you can also add a hashtag that relates to the topic of what you are presenting on.
You can share the post about your talk before, during or after the event.
Create a graphic or infographic
If you create a graphic or share an image to go with your talk, a great resource is Writing image Descriptions on Accessible Social – which helps you create social media posts accessible for people with disabilities.
The next ideas are for things you can do while the event is happening.
Check out the conference hashtag, again
If you checked out the event hashtag, you might find that people weren’t using it. Once the event starts, you can start using the conference hashtag and check it out! See if there is a conversation you want to be part of, or an event you want to check out.
Be open about your online presence
The best thing you can do for your online presence while at an in person event, is to be open that you have a website or that you’re on social media.
Help people find and connect with you
You can make this easier for people by making a QR code that helps people go to your website, have this info on a business card, create a hand out with information or resource about your talk (that includes people need to your online presence) , or use an end slide in your presentation to help people connect with you after the event is over.
Resources to take home and share
When you create a resource like a handout or links /slides to share, that can go on your personal academic website. They can also be shared on social media using that conference hashtag to help people find this resource that you’ve already taken the time to gather.
Will this be recorded?
Ask if there is going to be a recording. Sometimes, there isn’t an official recording but you can ask if you can record yourself.
Stay connected once you’re gone
Connect with people you meet or you like and admire on social media, while at the conference. Helps others be more likely to learn about you.
It’s okay if you don’t do any of that too
I have never had time for any of that at conferences, personally. In person events can be overwhelming for me as an introvert. Because of that, I don’t have the brain capacity to remember things like take a photo, much less record some videos.
Anything I just talked about – some of those things can be prepped in advance others you don’t have to do live (you can do afterward)
Next are ideas you can do after your presentation or talk is over.
Whether there was a recording of your talk or not, you could always record your talk and slides using zoom, then post the video to your website or social media. There are options to share the full version of your talk, if you like to. You can just share the title slide, or full text version of the talk, or even the full slides.
Connect with people when you’re back at home
If you didn’t connect with people during the event, sometimes connecting AFTER the event is easier. You can look at the conference hashtag. Look through the business cards you collected. See the conference program and look at the bios to see who is on social media.
Create and/or share resources
If you didn’t have resources to share at your talk, if there are things you want people to know after the fact, you can create a graphic or handout that is shareable on social media or a page on your website.
Celebrate other people
While you can post about your own talk, you can also post about your panel and thank the conference and event organizers. If you want to participate in the conference community but not want to talk about your own talk, you can celebrate others instead. It’s a great opportunity for PIs to celebrate their lab members or grad students who are at the event. There are so many ways to celebrate people instead of yourself, if that feels comfortable or more exciting for you.
These don’t have to be professional shots. A messy desk shot or photo of you working on your slides or going over your notes on the plane. Something that feels quick or easy to you.
Take pictures during the event
Snap a photo of things you see, people you meet, friends you catch up with. Ask someone to take photos of you while you’re speaking or pose at the conference.
You could record a video of your talk
This can be before, during, or after the event.
You can record a video about your talk
Record a short video introducing your talk and the main takeaways. This video is especially for people who couldn’t be there live for your presentation.
Record some b-roll
If you like video, record b-roll video. Take a sip of coffee, getting ready to speak, short travel clips, video of fellow panelists or friends. These might be put into a longer video or Instagram reel.
But these might feel like too much – so even though they are fun ideas, don’t be stressed if you do none of them.
