Writing your academic biography
You’ll often be asked to submit an academic biography if you propose a conference paper, contribute a chapter to an edited collection, or publish a journal article or book. Even early in your research candidature, it can’t hurt to start thinking about your bio. There are a few different ways that you can go about writing yours. In this blog post, I offer five different formulations: the short-and-sweet bio; the brief bio; the detailed bio; the independent scholar bio; and the academic-adjacent bio.
The short-and-sweet bio
Formula: [Name] is a [position] at [institution].
Example: Big Bird is a doctoral student at Sesame College.
When to use it: You can never go too wrong with the short-and-sweet approach. Scholars at all levels use it for books, articles, conference papers, blog posts… everything, really.
Why it’s good: It’s quick to update and doesn’t require much thinking.
The brief bio
Formula: [Name] is a [position] at [institution] + main research interests include [this] and [this] + has recently [done this thing] + tweets at [Twitter handle] OR [Name] is a [position] at [institution] + [doctoral/current] research project studies [this] and [this] + tweets at [Twitter handle].
Example: Dr Abby Cadabby is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of the Upper West Side. Her main research interests include a decolonial approach to Fairy Studies, and she recently published the edited volume Rhyme Time: Creative Methods (2023, Sesame Books). She tweets at @AbbyCadabbySST.
When to use it: You’ll probably use this one quite often – it’s my favourite. Like the short-and-sweet approach, the brief biography (around 50 words or so) gives people a sense of you and your work (and how to contact or find out more about you). This one is versatile; you can use it anywhere a bio is requested.
Why it’s good: I like this version because it strikes a nice balance of enough-but-not-too-much detail, but most importantly, it has contact details for people to find you even when you switch roles or institutions. (This is why a social media handle is good in bios over email addresses – you tend to keep the same one even when you leave a job.)
The detailed biography
Formula: The brief biography + more detail (things like publications, projects, experience, research themes, teaching background, any awards your research has received)
Example: A/Prof Count von Count is an Associate Professor in Mathematics at the University of Manhattan. His main research interest is counting things, and he recently published his latest book, The Number of the Day (2022, University of Manhattan Press). He is a vocal advocate for vampire rights and was one of the founders of Vampires Lobbying Against Discrimination (VLAD). He is frequently invited to discuss his research in various media outlets. He contributes to public policy in the public service announcements that he delivers in support of the United States Census. Count tweets at @CountVonCount.
When to use it: The detailed biography is often used by more experienced academics who have published extensively and have notable public outreach activities or collaborations that they want to include or multiple affiliations with different institutions. However, it might still be appropriate to use a longer bio if you’re being interviewed for a profile piece (like many of the guest bloggers do for the (academic) writer posts…) or on promotional material, like if your work is the focus of a seminar.
Why it’s good: This version gives readers a really good sense of who you are and the kind of work that you do. It is also good for university staff pages. That said, I would caution against using a longer bio if you don’t have much to put in it (yet!). It makes more sense to have a succinct but very focused biography than one that is longer and contains information that might be of less interest to the reader (such as unrelated work experience).
The independent scholar bio
Formula: [Name]’s research interests include [this] and [this] + overview of publications/activities + tweets at [Twitter handle].
Example: Dr Elmo’s research interests include early childhood education and toddlers’ language development. Elmo completed his doctoral studies at Sesame College in 2018 and currently hosts Elmo’s World. He can be reached via email at elmo@elmoconsultancy.com and is on Twitter @Elmo.
When to use it: If you don’t have a longer-term role or institution or are an independent scholar, this biography can be a good way of framing yourself.
Why it’s good: If you are between roles or undertaking casual roles across multiple institutions, you may want to formulate your bio in a way that sidesteps naming a position and an institution. That’s where the independent scholar bio can come in handy: it still establishes you as an expert with experience but doesn’t include a formal affiliation. In this case, depending on where the bio will appear, including an email address or a website that isn’t likely to change can be a good way to make it nice and easy for people to contact you.
The academic-adjacent bio
Formula: Up to you!
Example 1: Cait Hamilton is a creative and highly skilled content creator, developer and editor with industry experience across law, education, publishing, not-for-profit, and government. She is a qualified lawyer, has research and teaching experience in the higher education sector, and holds extensive developmental editing expertise.
Example 2: Cait Hamilton works with students and academics to turn their brilliant ideas into exceptional writing. She edits, coaches, writes, and researches, and is the founder of Hamilton Editorial, which brings all of these things together. Her favourite pen is a classic Bic biro, and she’s yet to come across a writing problem that can’t be solved with a little time, a stack of Post-it notes, and a good-sized whiteboard.
When to use it: Increasingly, academics are starting side – or full-time! – hustles outside of academia, and a traditional academic bio doesn’t necessarily make sense for this kind of work. In the examples above, you can see two versions of my academic-adjacent bio. Example 1 is the one I used when I was starting to develop my career outside of academia. I didn’t have a clear sense of the work I was interested in, so I framed myself and my experience widely. As it has gradually become clearer to me the work I really love doing (and what I want Hamilton Editorial to become), I’ve tweaked my bio accordingly. Example 2 is the version I currently use on things like the contact page of the website and LinkedIn.
Why it’s good: There’s much more scope to personalise this bio – you can see how different the two examples of my bio are. I’ve also found it easier to let my voice come through more clearly in this bio than in my earlier academic bios, but that could be because I’m now doing a different kind of work (and working for myself!).
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Of course, you could well have different bios for different audiences or purposes – the entry on your staff page, for example, might be very different from the biography you use to accompany a guest blog whose readers are familiar with your field, which will be different again to the version you use on the back of your book.
And aside from being useful to have on hand, drafting your academic bio can be a good opportunity to reflect on how you want to present yourself as a researcher. In the same way you have an ‘elevator pitch’ version of your research, drafting your bio means thinking about strategically positioning yourself as a researcher, which is never a bad exercise to undertake at any stage of your career.