WE3Lab Website — Editing Guide

All routine content updates are made by editing JSON files and pushing to main. GitHub Actions rebuilds the affected HTML automatically (weekly on Sunday nights, or triggered manually).

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Triggering a rebuild manually

Go to Actions → Update Site → Run workflow in GitHub to rebuild immediately rather than waiting for the Sunday schedule.

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Adding or updating a lab member

Edit members/members.json and add or update an entry in the members array:

{
  "name": "Jane Smith",
  "role": "phd student",
  "groups": ["energy flexibility", "infrastructure planning"],
  "scholar_id": "XXXXXXXXX",
  "scholar_url": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XXXXXXXXX",
  "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/janesmith/",
  "website": "",
  "cv": ""
}

Valid roles: postdoc, phd student, ms student, undergrad, staff, alumni

Valid groups (must match exactly): energy flexibility, infrastructure planning, separations, water technology

For alumni, add:

"degree_year": "PhD 2024",
"placement": "Google DeepMind"

Push to main. The next GitHub Actions run regenerates people.html and all research subgroup pages.

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Adding a member photo

Photos are displayed automatically if a file named {first}{last}.png (lowercase, no spaces) exists in members/images/.

1. Crop the photo to a square (any resolution; 400×400px is fine).
2. Save it as e.g. janesmith.png.
3. Commit and push to members/images/janesmith.png.

No rebuild is needed — the build script picks up the image the next time it runs.

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Adding a past dissertation

Dissertation defense recordings live in research/dissertations.json. The page loads this file at runtime — no build step needed.

Step 1 — upload the defense recording to YouTube

1. Go to YouTube Studio and sign in with the lab account.
2. Click Create → Upload videos and select the recording file.
3. Fill in the title (e.g. "Jane Smith — PhD Defense 2025") and description.
4. Under Visibility, choose Unlisted. This keeps the video off public search while still allowing it to be embedded on the site.
5. Finish uploading and wait for processing to complete.
6. Copy the video URL from the address bar — it will look like https://youtu.be/XXXXXXXXXXX.

Step 2 — add the entry to dissertations.json

Open research/dissertations.json and add a new key–value pair using the graduate's full name as the key:

{
  "Jane Smith": {
    "title": "Full Dissertation Title Here",
    "year": 2025,
    "tags": ["energy flexibility", "infrastructure planning"],
    "link": "https://youtu.be/XXXXXXXXXXX"
  },
  "Akshay K. Rao": {
    ...
  }
}

Valid tags (must match exactly, lowercase): energy flexibility, infrastructure planning, separations, water technology

Each tag renders as a pill on the page that links directly to the corresponding research subgroup page. Use only tags that describe the dissertation's primary research areas.

Push to main. Because dissertations.json is fetched client-side, no rebuild is required — the new entry appears immediately.

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Adding a news item to the front page

Edit assets/news.json and prepend a new entry:

{
  "date": "May 2026",
  "headline": "Paper accepted at Nature Water",
  "link": "https://example.com/paper"
}

Push to main. The front page loads news.json at runtime (no build step required), so the item appears immediately after the push.

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Adding a new research subgroup

This requires two small edits:

1. Create the subgroup page by copying an existing one (e.g. research/separations.html) and editing the title and description.

2. Register the group in subgroups.json:

   { "key": "new group name", "label": "New Group Name", "file": "research/newgroup.html" }

   The build scripts read this file automatically — no Python edits needed. If the HTML file listed in research/subgroups.json does not exist, the scripts will exit with a 404 error identifying the missing page.

3. Add members to the group using the groups field in members/members.json (see above).

Push to main and trigger a manual workflow run.

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How the automation works

File edited	What rebuilds	How
members/members.json	people.html, all research/*.html member lists	GitHub Actions runs build_people_page.py + update_subgroup_members.py
members/images/*.png	Nothing — images are served directly	Static file, no build needed
assets/news.json	Nothing — loaded client-side at runtime	Push and it's live
research/dissertations.json	Nothing — loaded client-side at runtime	Push and it's live
research/*.html (content)	Nothing	Edit directly

The workflow runs every Sunday at 6 pm PT and can be triggered manually from the Actions tab.