Most lab about pages are the homepage’s mission statement, restated at greater length. That’s a missed opportunity, since a visitor who clicks through to the about page has already decided the lab is worth a closer look. They’re not asking what the lab studies again. They’re asking what it’s like, and whether they’d fit.
The homepage and the about page do different jobs
The homepage has five seconds to say what the lab studies, in language a stranger can follow. The about page has a visitor’s attention already, someone who read the homepage and wanted more. Restating the same summary in more words wastes that attention. The about page should answer a different question: what’s the lab’s approach, and what’s it like to be part of it.
What belongs on it
A few things consistently earn their place on a strong about page:
- The lab’s approach, not only its subject. Two labs studying the same system can work completely differently: one favors long-term single projects, another runs several parallel smaller ones. A prospective student cares about this as much as the subject matter.
- A short, current version of the PI’s background, focused on how it led to the lab’s present work, not a full CV. Link the CV separately for anyone who wants the complete version.
- Short bios for every lab member, even a sentence each. This is the section prospective students read most carefully, trying to picture themselves in the group.
- What the lab values day to day: how often the group meets, whether the culture leans collaborative or independent, how the lab handles authorship or credit. Specifics here do more than a generic “we value collaboration and rigor” ever will.
What tends to make the page worse
A mission statement copied from the homepage adds length without adding information. So does a history section that reads like a CV entry rather than a story: “The lab was established in 2019” tells a visitor nothing they’d act on. “The lab started when [PI] left a postdoc studying X to pursue a harder question about Y” gives an actual sense of why the lab exists and what it’s chasing.
Jargon-heavy descriptions of the lab’s methods, written for a grant reviewer rather than a prospective student or curious collaborator, are another common miss. The about page’s reader is often less specialized than a grant panel, and language calibrated for the wrong reader loses them.
A good test before publishing: hand the draft to a labmate outside the immediate research group, in a different department if possible, and ask what they understood about the lab’s approach after reading it. If the answer is close to nothing, the page is written for people who already know the lab, which defeats its purpose.
A structure that works for most labs
A short opening paragraph on the lab’s approach and what makes it distinct, followed by a brief history if there’s a real story to tell, followed by short bios for every member, covers what most visitors came looking for. Each section should be short enough that someone reads the whole page rather than skimming the first paragraph and leaving.
Keeping it current
An about page is one of the pages most likely to go stale between updates, since nothing about it feels urgent the way a new publication does. Tying updates to the same trigger events, someone joining or leaving, a shift in the lab’s direction, keeps this page from quietly falling a year or two behind the group it’s supposed to describe.
Common questions
What's the difference between a lab's homepage and its about page?
The homepage states what the lab studies, fast, for a visitor deciding whether to keep reading. The about page is for someone who's already interested and wants the fuller picture: the lab's approach, its history, and what it's like to work there.
Should an about page include the PI's full biography?
A shortened version, focused on what's relevant to the lab's current work and to someone deciding whether to join or collaborate, works better than a complete academic CV. The full CV can live as a separate linked document for anyone who wants it.
Do all lab members need a bio on the about page?
A short one each, at minimum a sentence on what they work on. A lab of any size benefits from this, since a prospective student reads these bios closely to picture themselves in the group.
How long should a lab's about page be?
Long enough to give a real sense of the lab's approach and people, short enough that someone reads the whole thing. A few short sections, each focused on one thing, usually beats a single long block of text.