Biographical Website Design for Scientific Outreach

Oulon, Freud

Student Work

Biographical Website Design for Scientific Outreach

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In this project, research publicity and student outreach are treated as different faces of the same coin and are tackled at once. While doing so, this project makes remarks on some essential aspects of web biography. The project makes a biographical website of one of WPI’s laboratories, the Center for Wireless Information and Communication Studies (CWINS), and of its founding director and lead researcher, Prof. Kaveh Pahlavan. The website is both a documentation of the work done at CWINS, a publicity for STEM education among youth, and a web biography. We first gather the biographical data from interviews, articles, photos, videos, personal narratives, and a previously existing website on the contribution of the laboratory. Then, we proceed to the thematic analysis of the data with the theme of a well-rounded researcher. We reconstruct Prof. Kaveh Pahlavan life from a historical approach, centered around a timeline. After that, following the methodology of Joanna Bornat (2008), we make a comparison of the highlights of the historical approach with that of the thematic analysis(pp. 344–356). The first stage of the web design entailed in determining a solid hierarchy for the website design. The design aims to separate the professional and personal growth to portray the various stages of the life and careers development as a professor. Personal life is divided into pre-professional educational era, research and teaching during the professional growth, and formation of family and social activities in late career. The design aims to strike balance on the amount of technical information that is presented. The combination of the web and biographical methodologies reflect the novelty of this project.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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