Gilbert Lab Website

A Jekyll site hosted on GitHub Pages. Content lives in plain data files under _data/, so most updates don't require touching any HTML.

For Content Editors

Almost everything you'll want to change lives in the _data/ folder. Edit a file, commit/push it, and GitHub rebuilds the site automatically (usually within a minute).

What to update	File to edit
Team — PI, scientists, students, staff	_data/team.yml
Alumni	_data/alumni.yml
Publications	_data/publications.yml
Research areas	_data/research.yml
Protocols & resources	_data/protocols.yml
Lab events	_data/events.yml

Format basics

The data files are YAML. The rules:

• Keep the indentation (2 spaces) exactly as shown.
• Each list entry starts with - .
• Each property is key: value.
• If a value contains a colon followed by a space, wrap it in quotes.

Add a team member

In _data/team.yml, add an entry under scientists, students, or staff:

  - name: Jane Doe
    role: Postdoc
    photo: images/team/jane.jpg
    linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janedoe/   # optional

Add an alumnus

In _data/alumni.yml (kept alphabetical):

- name: Jane Doe
  years: 2020-2024          # optional
  current: Scientist, Acme Bio   # optional
  linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janedoe/   # optional

Add a publication

In _data/publications.yml (newest first):

- year: 2026
  title: Your paper title
  authors: Doe J et al.
  journal: Nature
  url: https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

Edit a research area

In _data/research.yml. The icon picks one of the built-in SVGs (helix, nodes, screen, network, cells, shield):

  - title: New Area
    icon: helix
    description: One or two sentences describing the work.

Add a lab event

In _data/events.yml (newest first; the carousel shows the 12 most recent, so a new entry with a recent date appears automatically):

- date: 2026-05-01
  title: "Lab Retreat"
  description: "Annual offsite"   # optional
  image: images/events/retreat-2026.jpg

Adding photos

1. Put the image in images/team/.
2. Reference it in the YAML as images/team/filename.jpg.
3. Square-ish portraits work best (e.g. 400×500).

Previewing locally (optional)

The live site builds on GitHub automatically — you don't need any of this just to publish. To preview before pushing, you need Jekyll once:

gem install bundler jekyll
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Then open http://localhost:4000. (Because the site is now templated, opening index.html directly via file:// will not render the content — use the local server, or just push and view the live site.)

Notes

• Don't hand-edit index.html, css/, or js/ for content changes — use the _data/ files.
• _config.yml holds site-wide settings.
• The DNA-helix hero animation lives in js/main.js.