LaTeX template for NSF-style Biographical Sketch

On large multi-university NSF grant proposals, NSF requires that senior personnel submit a 2-page biographical sketch ("biosketch") that is formatting according to certain rules in their Grant Proposal Guide (GPG). The format is pretty simple, and so there does not seem to be much demand for a solid LaTeX template for one. Nevertheless, I thought some people might find one helpful. I've posted a PDF of my NSF-style biosketch below along with the TeX source used to generate it.

• PDF: tpavlic_nsf_biosketch.pdf
• LaTeX template: tpavlic_nsf_biosketch.tex

On a related note, you can also find my curriculum vitae (CV) tailored for faculty searches (PDF, TeX) as well as for industry searches (PDF, TeX).

Update to my LaTeX CV templates: Space allowed after sections now!

In preparation for setting up MultiMarkDown (MMD) to write my CV for me, I've been thinking about ways to refactor my old résumé/CV LaTeX templates to make them look a little cleaner. A fix I came up with tonight should help with that, and I think it will also make the templates easier for others to work with even if they're not doing anything with MMD.

In particular, the \section macro used to be renewed as a \marginpar with some other ugly stuff. Putting the sections in the margins caused problems because people like to put spaces after the sections, which generates a \par that means the section content will not be aligned with the section heading in the margin note. So the old way I got around that problem was to force people not to use spaces between \section and the section content. If they needed visual space in their source code, they could use comments to do that.

Well, I've swapped out that ugly definition for a slightly less ugly one that uses \llap (with a \smashed \parbox) and some creative gobbling. In particular,

% The section headings
%
% Usage: \section{section name}
\renewcommand{\section}[1]{\pagebreak[3]%
    \hyphenpenalty=10000%
    \vspace{1.3\baselineskip}%
    \phantomsection\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1}%
    \noindent\llap{\scshape\smash{%
        \parbox[t]{\marginparwidth}{\raggedright #1}}}%
    \vspace{-\baselineskip}\par}

The \vspace and \par combination should ensure that an additional \par isn't added by LaTeX. So before you were restricted to things like...

\section{Stuff} \begin{bibsection} %...

and

\section{Stuff}
%
Junk

But now you don't have to be so careful about the whitespace. You are allowed:

\section{Stuff}

\begin{bibsection} %...

and

\section{Stuff}

Junk

So that's cool. Much more readable.

You can get my most recent LaTeX CV templates at their page on my website. You can find a detailed history of the source code changes within my Mercurial repositories of documents.

(updated: new \gobblepars allows for arbitrary amount of space after each \section)
(updated: replaced \gobblepars with \par hack that still allows for arbitrary amount of space after each \section but also prevents lists from adding a \par when placed directly after a \section; consequently, adjusted all of the lone-lists to get rid of their leading negative vertical space (probably can get rid of them now, actually). I'm trying to shift toward using conventional lists (or perhaps conventional modifications of them from paralist or enumitem))

Updated LaTeX document class for Ohio State University (OSU) graduate school dissertation and thesis documents

Back in 1996, The Ohio State University Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department made available LaTeX2e support files including a document class that complied with the graduate school's format for dissertations (see samples pages, guidelines, templates, and other resources from the graduate school). The resulting osudissert96.cls and osudissert96-mods.sty from the ECE department was kept up to date through 1998, but it was left to lapse out of compliance after several format updates from the graduate school (including a recent one in 2009). Additionally, the graduate school only officially supports helping students with documents "typeset" in Microsoft Word (and even their Word templates may require a more recent version than they claim on the website).

So back when I put together my dissertation (which has source code available to review) in 2010, I updated those old ECE templates for the 2010 format. I tried to make them backward compatible with the old osudissert96 to make them nice drop-in replacements for anyone using the outdated versions. You can find them at:

• http://links.tedpavlic.com/zip/osudissert10.zip
• http://links.tedpavlic.com/zip/sample-osudissert10.zip

For the most part, the old osudissert96 documentation still applies. However, it might be better just browsing through the sample and/or using the sample as a template for your own document. To get the sample up and running,

1. Unzip sample-osudissert10.zip.
2. Unzip osudissert10.zip.
3. Put the CLS and STY files from osudissert10.zip into the same directory as the files from sample-osudissert10.zip
4. Build the sample dissertation with:
   1. pdflatex Thesis.tex
   2. bibtex Thesis.aux
   3. pdflatex Thesis.tex
   4. pdflatex Thesis.tex
5. Review the resulting Thesis.pdf file, which also includes documentation on how to get your own dissertation up and running.

There is also a README file in sample-osudissert10.zip that basically says the same as above. Experts may just need the files in osudissert10.zip, but it will still be useful to see the quick reference in Appendix B of the sample dissertation. Note that the documentclass is still called osudissert96.cls even though the zip file is called osudissert10.zip; this choice was made for compatibility with old dissertations using the old files.

I hope that helps someone out there. I probably won't be monitoring the graduate school format policies now that I am not in graduate school anymore, but I am usually happy to help with "how-to-modify" questions over e-mail (if I have time). Good luck!

How to put "1 of ..." page numbers on a LaTeX letter

Someone e-mailed me recently to ask how to add "1 of LAST_PAGE" page numbers to a LaTeX letter document. I generated the sample LaTeX document fancy_letter_numbering.tex to show how it's done using the fancyhdr and lastpage packages.

Here is my response, which gives more details:

I have attached a sample letter with "1 of ..." page numbering throughout. fancyhdr works with "letter" just as well as it works with "article." You just have to treat "\opening" just like you do "\maketitle."

In particular, put this up in your preamble:

\usepackage{lastpage}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\fancyhead{}
\fancyfoot{}
\cfoot{\thepage{}~of~\pageref{LastPage}}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}

Then, after each "\opening" (in the case of a single letter, there will only be one), put the line:

\thispagestyle{fancy}

Otherwise you will get page numbers on every page except for the first one.

Of course, you will have to run LaTeX (or PDFLaTeX) at least twice to place the "LastPage" label properly and generate the correct page refeference.

[ Additionally, you may further customize the headings and footers making use of all of the nice features that come with the fancyhdr package. ]

Thesis, Defense, and Source Available

I packaged it all up, documented it, and made it available on-line. Hopefully having a whole LaTeX thesis source on-line will be helpful to someone. This thesis has multiple indices (people and topic), glossaries, and all sorts of PDF hyperlinking and referencing. It uses packages like authorindex, hyperref, index, and natbib. I hope it serves as a good example for putting together a digital book.

• Research Page
  
  • Optimal Foraging Theory Revisited thesis
  • Optimal Foraging Theory Revisited defense presentation
    (best viewed in latest Adobe Acrobat)
• Thesis LaTeX Source Directory


• OhioLink Entry

Archives are also stored in the source directory. The defense presentation is best viewed in latest Adobe Acrobat as it makes use of a number of very modern PDF features. The presentation is built with LaTeX using powerdot.

The source directory also includes a modified osudissert96-mods.sty and the standard osudissert96.cls file, which is part of the osudissert96 (info, source) package. The modifications:

• Force title to uppercase to match updated submission rules.


• Additional hyperref support: If phantomsection defined, will add phantomsection in dedication page.


• Additional hyperref support: alphanumeric page numbers on title page to prevent page name conflicts.

Just so everyone knows, the two acceptable graduate unit names for the OSU ECE department are

• Graduate Program in Electrical & Computer Engineering


• Electrical & Computer Engineering Graduate Program

Updated LaTeX CV Example

SEE ALSO - I have just posted the LaTeX source for an entire book (i.e., a thesis). This may be an interesting example for those who are in need of CV's.

I've updated my LaTeX Résumé/CV example so that things like paper size and margin widths are easier to adjust. I think the new version is pretty easy to use and may even serve as a good learning tool.

New LaTeX Resume/CV Template

UPDATE: I've made a few updates that make the LaTeX easier to work with while still providing the same output. I've updated the links to the new source below. This source code evolves toward greater simplicity (e.g., so it can someday be generated from MultiMarkDown). So expect things like the specialized list environments to one day be dropped.

I've just created a new post on using LaTeX for résumé/CV production. I've actually just put my own CV on-line as well as its LaTeX source. They can be found at:

• tpavlic_cv_faculty.pdf – My CV (PDF)
• tpavlic_cv_faculty_tex.ascii – The LaTeX source linked for easy browser viewing
• tpavlic_cv_faculty.tex – The LaTeX source linked for easy downloading

Notice the \makeheading{}, \section, and \blankline
macros as well as the outerlist and innerlist environments. Also notice how the template creates PDF bookmarks to each section of the CV.

It should be possible to take my template, strip out my information, and add your own.