I started a new job a month ago, the first one after my PhD employment. Recently, a conference organizer invited an established researcher from our group to give a talk at their conference. The researcher was not available at that date, but suggested that I hold the talk, which the organizer accepted.
Now I am required to submit a "speaker biography", which I assume will be printed in the conference programme. There are parallel sessions, so I expect the speakers' biographies will have an impact on people deciding which track to attend.
The problem is that I have very done little in my career to interest the conference goers, whose background is in a completely different field than mine. None of my previously published research is of much relevance for this conference. The content I will present interests them, but it is the work my colleagues did before I joined the group.
So I see a few options:
- Leave the biography at 50 words stating name, institution and current project. It will probably appear very short in comparison to the other speakers' (upper limit is 250 words).
- Add previous work, even though it is neither relevant nor impressive (the PhD is not yet finished).
- Write a bit more about the current project, which is relevant for them, but not exactly biographical. And also awkward to phrase without giving the impression that I am responsible for the work that has been done so far.
Due to a tight printing deadline and it being vacation season, I cannot get advice from the conference organizers about what they would prefer. I also don't have access to earlier years' speakers biographies, or to any other material from earlier years of this conference (abstracts, programmes, proceedings, etc).
What would be a good strategy for writing the biography in my case?