Writing your Academic or Professional Bio

A bio is an increasingly important piece of your scholarly or professional identity. A bio is usually a short synopsis of who youa re as a researcher or professional, and delivers details on your background, work interests and affiliation/contact info to a relatively general audience. According to Jennifer San-Franchini on Gradhacker:

First, three big picture things to keep in mind that will pretty much always outweigh any smaller, more specific tips: context, audience, and purpose.

For instance, some of the common contexts for academic bios include: publications (traditional print & digital, open access), conference proposals and proceedings, fellowship or other types of funding applications, course websites, professional websites and blogs, departmental/institutional websites, and social/professional networking sites like Twitter. Context also includes things like disciplinary conventions, so it’s a good idea to look at some bios in your discipline.

Some of the common audiences who read academic bios include: colleagues/academics in your department or discipline (including people who could be on one of your hiring committees in the future!), academics outside of your field of study, undergraduate students, and clients of various types. It’s definitely important to keep in mind that any and all of these audiences could potentially encounter your bio with a quick Google search, but it’s nonetheless a good idea to tailor your bio for your specific target audience(s).

Some of the common purposes of academic bios include: to give readers of an article or conference proceeding a sense of who is providing that information; to acquaint another academic interested in your research with some of your background information; to give clients of a particular institutional site a sense of who they’re working with; to give prospective graduate students a sense of the grad students who are currently in a department; to give undergraduate students a sense of who their instructors are; to contribute to an institutional, departmental, or programmatic identity; or to give potential collaborators or potential hirers a sense of the work you do along with your academic and scholarly identity.

Tips on writing an academic bio

Examples from JSG