People Management Guide

People Management Guide

This guide explains how to manage people in the lab website, including status changes when someone becomes alumni.

People Data Structure

Each person in _data/people.yml has the following fields:

- name: "Person Name"
  picture: "/images/people/person.jpg"
  home_url: "https://person-website.com"
  description: "Brief description of the person"
  rank: "faculty|phd|ms|ug|alumni"  # Current status
  current_position: "Current job title and company"  # For alumni
  links:
    - type: "scholar|github|twitter|home"
      url: "link_url"

Status Management

When Someone Becomes Alumni

  1. Update their rank: Change rank from phd/ms/ug to alumni
  2. Add current_position: Include their new job title and company
  3. Update description: Change from present tense to past tense
  4. Keep them in projects: They remain listed in project pages automatically

Example Status Change

Before (Active Student):

- name: "Jane Doe"
  description: "Jane is a PhD student working on robot learning."
  rank: "phd"
  current_position: "PhD Student, USC"

After (Alumni):

- name: "Jane Doe"
  description: "Jane was a PhD student working on robot learning."
  rank: "alumni"
  current_position: "Research Scientist, Google DeepMind"

Automatic Updates

  • Project Pages: When you update someone’s status in people.yml, all project pages automatically show their new status and current position
  • People Page: The main people page will categorize them correctly based on their rank
  • Project Cards: Thumbnails in project cards will show their updated information

Adding New People

  1. Add their entry to _data/people.yml
  2. Add their photo to /images/people/
  3. Include them in relevant projects by adding their name to the people: list in project files

Project Integration

Projects automatically pull people information from _data/people.yml. To add someone to a project:

  1. Add their name to the people: list in the project’s front matter
  2. Ensure their name exactly matches the name field in people.yml

The project page will automatically display:

  • Their photo
  • Current status (rank)
  • Description
  • Current position (if alumni)
  • Social links

Publication Integration

Projects automatically show related publications from _data/publications.yml. To link a publication to a project:

  1. Add a projects: field to the publication in _data/publications.yml
  2. List the project IDs (filename without .md extension) that the publication relates to

Example:

- title: 'Your Publication Title'
  authors: 'Author Names'
  venue: 'Conference Name'
  projects:
    - example_project
    - human_robot_interaction
  links:
    - type: pdf
      url: /pdfs/publications/paper.pdf

The project page will automatically display:

  • Publication title and authors
  • Venue information
  • Publication image (if available)
  • All links (PDF, arXiv, code, etc.)
  • Organized by year