Summer R. Jackson
A faculty website should say who you are as a scholar, not just list your CV.
Summer R. Jackson is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Her site was already on Squarespace, but it had been built when she finished her Ph.D. at MIT and went on the academic job market, and it still read like a CV.
- Client
- Summer R. Jackson
- Role
- Faculty, Harvard Business School
- Based in
- Boston, MA
- Audience
- Academics & practitioners
- Built on
- Squarespace
The starting point
Early in an academic career, a faculty website is mostly a visual version of your CV: the papers, where they were published, and a way to reach you. As Summer moved to the next stage of her career, the expectation changed. The site needed to explain who she is as a scholar, what questions her work asks, and why those questions matter.
She also had two very different readers to serve. Other academics want the research agenda and publications. Practitioners, the managers and leaders who might hear her speak or read her work, want to know quickly why it matters to the problems they deal with at work.
What they asked for
- A narrative of her research agenda, not a list of papers
- A warm, friendly photo and a clear “about me and my research” up front
- Room for videos, media and talks without turning into a speaker site
- A layout that works for academics and practitioners at the same time
- A site she can keep updating herself on Squarespace
- Live before she started teaching again in the fall
What we built
Before she committed to anything, I built a homepage mockup from the faculty sites she pointed to as inspiration, so we could agree on a direction while she wrote the content.
The homepage opens on a full-width portrait with her name, title and research areas, and the CV one click away. A research focus section leads with a single sentence that sums up her work, then two short paragraphs for readers who want more. “Why my research matters” turns the abstract into concrete examples from her papers, followed by a band of recent awards, a selected research list with the journal for each paper, and media highlights. Short “a little about me” notes add the personal context that makes the research make sense.
Deep green, cream and a restrained gold with serif headings give it an academic feel without looking dated. The site covers Research, Teaching & Cases, Media & Talks, a bio and contact, and everything is built in native Squarespace sections she can edit herself as new papers and talks come out.
The result
A faculty site that answers “who is Summer Jackson and what does she study?” in one scroll, for a hiring committee and a manager alike, with the full CV still one click away.
