HugoBlox Academic CV is a Hugo-based portfolio theme for academic researchers that turns plain Markdown files into a live, always-on curriculum vitae website with auto-imported publications and AI-assisted page generation.
What is HugoBlox Academic CV?
HugoBlox Academic CV is a free, open-source Hugo theme for building academic portfolio and CV websites. It takes Markdown content, BibTeX files, and Jupyter or RMarkdown notebooks as input, and produces a static HTML site that can be hosted on any free static host. The theme is part of the HugoBlox ecosystem developed by Lore Labs and released under the MIT License; the project reports 150,000+ researchers using HugoBlox at institutions such as MIT, Stanford, Google, and NVIDIA.
Key Features
- BibTeX / DOI auto-import — Add a
.bibfile and the theme automatically generates publication pages with citations, metadata, and links. - Jupyter & RMarkdown publishing — Publish
.ipynbnotebooks as posts with code, outputs, and narrative; RMarkdown is supported for R users. - LaTeX math rendering — Write equations natively in pages and posts for technical writing.
- Markdown slides with reveal.js — Create presentations with math, syntax highlighting, diagrams, and speaker notes.
- AI page generation with Hugo Chat — Describe a page in plain English and Hugo Chat returns structured content with correct Hugo front matter.
- Visual editing with Ownable CMS — A drag-and-drop block editor inside VS Code, so no coding knowledge is required.
- Plain Markdown, no lock-in — Every page is a human-readable Markdown file; there is no database, so content can be copied anywhere.
- Free hosting — The generated site can be deployed to GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, or Cloudflare Pages for free.
Who is it for?
- Students and recent graduates applying to research labs or industry roles can present a living portfolio instead of a static PDF resume.
- Researchers and postdocs can keep a citable online presence that combines publications, projects, and talks in one place.
- Faculty and principal investigators can showcase their lab with team profiles, group news, and publication lists.
- People with existing publication lists can drop in a BibTeX file and get formatted publication pages automatically.
What can you do with it?
- PhD students and postdocs: create a professional academic site over a weekend by editing Markdown, and let Hugo Chat generate new pages from prompts like "add a publications page with my 2024 papers from this BibTeX file."
- Lab leaders: build a group site where each member edits their own Markdown profile without needing IT support or a CMS login.
- Conference speakers and educators: host reveal.js slide decks with math and syntax highlighting directly on the same site as papers and projects.
How does HugoBlox Academic CV work?
Deploy with the browser at hugoblox.com (no installation) or with the CLI command npx hugoblox create site --template academic-cv, which requires Hugo Extended and Node.js. After creating a site, customize it by writing Markdown, using the Ownable CMS in VS Code, or asking Hugo Chat to generate pages. Hugo builds the Markdown files into a static HTML site, and the content remains stored as plain Markdown in your repository.
Pricing
The template is free. A Pro tier, Academic CV Pro, adds premium designs, advanced timeline and layout options, full-featured course and lecture sections, and priority support. Hosting is free on GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, or Cloudflare Pages.
FAQ
Do I need to know Hugo?
No. You can edit visually with Ownable CMS or write Markdown directly. Hugo is the build engine under the hood, and you do not need to touch it.
Can I import my existing publications?
Yes. Drop a BibTeX file into the site and publication pages are generated automatically with proper citations, metadata, and links.
Can I host for free?
Yes. GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, and Cloudflare Pages all have free tiers for static sites like this one.
Can I migrate my content later?
Yes. Your site is just Markdown files in a folder, so you can copy them to any other host or workflow.
What is Hugo Chat?
Hugo Chat is an AI assistant trained on Hugo and HugoBlox documentation. You describe what you want in plain language, and it generates the right pages with correct front matter. It is free to try at hugo.chat.
