Avalanche is a Jekyll-based research portfolio website template that builds a personal academic site with a data-driven publication page, a news feed, and configurable menu tabs. It pairs Jekyll with the Bulma CSS framework, and all site content is managed through YAML and CSV data files rather than hard-coded pages.
What is Avalanche?
Avalanche is a static-site template for researchers and academics who want a polished online portfolio. It takes its structure from Jekyll, the Ruby-based static site generator, and its styling from Bulma, a modern CSS framework. The template reads site-wide settings from _config.yml and user-provided data files in the _data folder, then generates a multi-page site with an index, about, research, and blog sections.
Key Features
- Data-driven configuration — Customize the site title, description, base URL, and URL directly in
_config.yml, then set index-page texts such as welcome message, personal photo, news highlight color, and personal description in_data/meta.yml. - Automatic publication page — Populate
_data/settings.csvwith paper metadata (type, topic, authors, title, venue, publisher, links to PDF, website, arXiv, poster, video, and an overview image) and Avalanche renders a clean publication list grouped by topic or type. - News management — Update announcements by editing the
_data/news.csvfile; no HTML changes required. - Customizable menu tabs — Define your site navigation in
_data/settings.yml; the menu list accepts entries for pages like About, Research, and Blog, and you can add or remove tabs freely. - Social media integration — Add your social media account URLs by editing the
socialsection in_data/settings.yml. - Publication topic filtering — Define topics with display names and short IDs in
_data/settings.yml, assign each paper a topic ID, and the research page gets filter tabs letting visitors view papers by category. - Markdown-friendly author names — Bold your own name in author lists using standard markdown double-asterisks, so your contribution stands out.
Who should use Avalanche?
Academic researchers and PhD students can use Avalanche to present their papers, preprints, and projects in a structured format without maintaining a custom website. It is also suited for postdocs and faculty who need a simple site for lab members, news, and teaching materials. Anyone comfortable editing YAML and CSV files can quickly adapt the template to their needs.
How do I set up Avalanche?
Install Jekyll first, then clone the repository and run bundle install. After that, start a local server with bundle exec jekyll serve and edit the data files to personalize your site. A starter tutorial is available at https://lolipopshock.github.io/avalanche/2021/09/03/Starter.html for publishing to GitHub Pages.
Use cases
- Academic researchers: Publish a searchable, filterable list of conference papers, journal articles, and working papers with links to PDFs, arXiv, posters, and videos.
- Graduate students: Build a personal homepage that highlights your research areas, news, and contact information in an afternoon.
- Lab groups: Maintain a shared lab website with a news feed and a consolidated publication list for all members, using only data files.
