Minimalistic Portfolio Template for Academics: A Modern and Easy Way

Academic portfolios are essential for showcasing research, publications, and projects to potential employers, collaborators, and the academic community. However, creating a professional and visually appealing portfolio can be challenging, especially for individuals with limited web development experience. This project aims to provide a minimalistic portfolio template designed specifically for academics, researchers, and students.

The template features a clean and modern design, making it easy to customize and update with personal information, research interests, publications, and projects. Users can easily modified sections, add new pictures and texts. The template is built using Next.js, a popular React framework, and Tailwind CSS, a utility-first CSS framework, ensuring a responsive and mobile-friendly design. By providing a simple and intuitive solution for creating academic portfolios, this template empowers individuals to showcase their work effectively and professionally.

Use the template

1. Click on the Use this template button on the top right corner of this page and choose Create a new repository.
2. Then, go to your new repository and open the data folder, you will find several .json files that you can modify to add your personal information, research interests, publications, and projects. You may find more details on how to modify these files in the next section.
3. After you finished modifying the .json files, go to Vercel and create a new account if you don't have one. Then, import your repository to Vercel and deploy it. You can find more details on how to deploy your Next.js app on Vercel here.

Modify the content

Warning: Please note that if you don't want certain field to appear on your portfolio, please leave that field blank. Do not remove the field!

Personal Information

To modify your personal information, open the personalInfo.json file in the data folder. You can change the following fields:

Field Name	Type	Description
name	String	The person's name, e.g., "John Doe".
domain	String	The domain of the personal website, e.g., "github.com".
email	String	The contact email, e.g., "test@brown.edu".
work_place	String	The name of the workplace, e.g., "Brown University".
work_place_url	String (URL)	The URL of the workplace, e.g., "https://www.example.com".
site_description	String	A description of the personal website, e.g., "This is a personal website".
greetings_on_homepage	String	The greeting message on the homepage, e.g., "Welcome!".
self_description_brief	String	A brief self-description, e.g., "PhD Student in Computational Biology".
self_description_detail	Array of Strings	A detailed self-description, with each array element as a paragraph.
cv_link	String (URL)	The link to the person's CV, e.g., "/cv.pdf".
research_interests	Array of Strings	A list of research interests, e.g., ["Machine Learning", "Deep Learning", "Computer Vision"].
social_media	Dictionary	A dictionary object containing links to social media profiles, including LinkedIn, GitHub, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, Google Scholar, and ORCID.

News

To modify the news section, open the news.json file in the data folder. You can change the following fields, and don't worry if you don't have any news to share, you can leave the file empty:

Field Name	Type	Description
id	Integer	A unique identifier for the news item.
time	String	The date of the news item in the format MM/DD/YYYY.
content	String	The content or description of the news item.
href	String	A URL link associated with the news item. If no link is available, this field may be an empty string.

Experience

To modify the experience section, open the experience.json file in the data folder. You can change the following fields:

Job Experience

Field Name	Type	Description
id	Integer	A unique identifier for the job experience entry.
title	String	The job title, e.g., "Software Engineer Intern".
company	String	The company or organization name, e.g., "Meta".
location	String	The location of the job, e.g., "Menlo Park, CA".
project_name	String	The name of the project associated with the job, if any.
instructor	String	The name of the instructor or supervisor, if any.
start_date	String	The start date of the job in MM/YYYY format, e.g., "06/2023".
end_date	String	The end date of the job in MM/YYYY format, e.g., "09/2023".
description	Array of Strings	A list of responsibilities and achievements during the job.
href	String (URL)	A URL link to more information about the job, if available. If no link is provided, this field may be an empty string.

Extracurricular

Field Name	Type	Description
id	Integer	A unique identifier for the extracurricular activity entry.
title	String	The title of the extracurricular activity, e.g., "Extracurricular Activity".
company	String	The name of the organization, e.g., "Company Name".
location	String	The location of the activity, e.g., "City, State".
project_name	String	The name of the project associated with the activity, if any.
instructor	String	The name of the instructor or supervisor, if any.
start_date	String	The start date of the activity in Month Year format.
end_date	String	The end date of the activity in Month Year format.
description	Array of Strings	A list of activities or accomplishments during the extracurricular activity.
href	String (URL)	A URL link to more information about the activity, if available. If no link is provided, this field may be an empty string.

Education

Field Name	Type	Description
id	Integer	A unique identifier for the education entry.
school	String	The name of the educational institution, e.g., "Brown University".
degree	String	The degree obtained or being pursued, e.g., "M.S. in Computational Biology".
status	String	The current status of the degree (e.g., "In Progress", "Graduated").
start_date	String	The start date of the degree program in MM/YYYY format, e.g., "09/2023".
end_date	String	The expected or actual graduation date in MM/YYYY format, e.g., "05/2025".
gpa	String	The Grade Point Average (GPA), e.g., "3.5 / 4.0".
courses	Array of Strings	A list of relevant courses taken during the degree program.
other_info	Array of Strings	Any additional information or honors related to the degree.
href	String (URL)	A URL link to more information about the education, if available. If no link is provided, this field may be an empty string.

Publications

To modify the publications section, open the publications.json file in the data folder. You can change the following fields:

Field Name	Type	Description
id	String	A unique identifier for the publication entry.
href	String (URL)	A URL link to the full publication, if available. If no link is provided, this field may be an empty string.
year	String	The publication year of the work, e.g., "2022".
abstract	Array of Strings	A list of paragraphs summarizing the publication's abstract. Each string in the array represents a separate paragraph.
keywords	Array of Strings	A list of keywords relevant to the publication, e.g., "Deep Learning", "Genomics", etc.
citation	String	The full citation for the publication, formatted according to the relevant style guide.
bold_name	String	The name of the author to be bolded in the citation, usually the person the list is focused on, e.g., "Doe, J.".
status	String	The current status of the publication, e.g., "In Progress", "Under Review", or "Published".

Projects

To modify the projects section, open the projects.json file in the data folder. You can change the following fields:

Field Name	Type	Description
id	Integer	A unique identifier for the project entry.
title	String	The title of the project, e.g., "Machine Learning for Drug Discovery".
description	Array of Strings	A list of paragraphs describing the project. Each string in the array represents a separate paragraph.
image	String (URL)	A URL or path to an image associated with the project. If no image is provided, this field may be an empty string.
href	Object	A dictionary containing key-value pairs where the key is the type of link (e.g., "Github", "Demo", "File") and the value is the corresponding URL.

Research

To modify the research section, open the research.json file in the data folder. You can change the following fields:

Field Name	Type	Description
id	Integer	A unique identifier for the research entry.
research_name	String	The title of the research project, e.g., "Machine Learning for Drug Discovery".
company	Array of Strings	A list of companies or institutions involved in the research, e.g., ["Brown University", "Google Research"].
instructor	Array of Strings	A list of instructors or supervisors involved in the research, e.g., ["Dr. John Doe", "Dr. Jane Smith"].
project	String	The name of the specific project within the research, if applicable. This field may be an empty string if not provided.
collaborators	Array of Strings	A list of collaborators involved in the research, e.g., ["Alice Johnson", "Bob Smith"]. If no collaborators are listed, this field may be an empty array.
abstract	Array of Strings	A list of paragraphs summarizing the research abstract. Each string in the array represents a separate paragraph.
keywords	Array of Strings	A list of keywords relevant to the research, e.g., ["Machine Learning", "Drug Discovery", "Deep Learning"].
href	Object	A dictionary containing key-value pairs where the key is the type of link (e.g., "Github", "Demo", "File") and the value is the corresponding URL.
status	String	The current status of the research, e.g., "In Progress", "Completed".