How I created my personal website

In 2021, I received the RStudio::Global Diversity Scholar Award, and that opened the door to a very special workshop hosted by the wonderful Alison Hill. She walked us through how to build a website using a handful of packages in RStudio, and I was immediately hooked. I learned to use the postcards and distill packages to put together my very first website, hosted out of GitHub. I still remember the moment it actually loaded in a browser…some thing I’d made with my own two hands (and a truly heroic amount of trial and error).

If you know me, you know I’ve since fallen hard for RStudio, especially its visualization capabilities (sorry, Stata!). R Markdown is my absolute fave since I’m able to write, code, and format all in one place! Once I had a bit of momentum, I got ambitious. I wanted something better…a real website, built with the Hugo Apéro theme, where people could actually get to know me. My research. My teaching. And more.

I followed Alison’s step-by-step guide, and little by little, this site came to life. Was it smooth? Ha. Not even close. There were times I sat there squinting at my screen, completely baffled, only to discover that one tiny misplaced character had blown up the whole thing (If you’ve ever built a website, you know exactly the kind of disaster I mean!). But that’s the fun of it. Every fix taught me something.

If you’ve been circling the idea of building your own FREE academic-based website, consider this your sign. You’ve got this. If you get stuck, you know where to find me.