Vote for Your Favorite Scientist Homepage

Today the flavors.me + BenchFly Scientist Homepage Challenge enters the final stage to determine which websites will receive a full year of premium services from the great folks over at flavors.  To support your favorites, vote for them below before March 23, 2011- the top five sites you like the most will be declared winners. (And we’re not talking the Charlie Sheen kind of ‘winner’…)  Of course, by creating fantastic homepages the entrants made it tough to decide between them.  So to get the ball rolling, we turned to a few expert judges from academia and industry to see what criteria they value in a great website.

The Experts Weigh In

Teaster Baird, Jr. |  Associate Professor, San Francisco State University

Teaster is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at San Francisco State University. He’s also a wannabe photographer and an ok actor and musician.

Favorite Sites:

Jaime Freitas: I liked the use of a black and white image and the graffiti background. I think what really makes the page is the visual contrast of this person with an inviting smile who is holding a camera playfully standing in front of gritty, urban graffiti art. This contrast makes me want to know more about this guy.

Jessica Morrison: The composition of the photo Jessica chose for her page was an attention grabber for me. The fact that her head is missing gives it a sense of mystery and made me one wonder “why didn’t she show her face?” So I read the bio looking for an answer, direct, implied or inferred. I think it had the intended effect. It caught my attention, held it and made me want to look deeper. It wouldn’t have had the same effect if it was just text.

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Tanya Bhatia |  eMarketing Manager, New England Biolabs

Tanya Bhatia is the eMarketing Manager for New England Biolabs, a world leader in the production and supply of reagents for the life science industry. After ten years of restriction enzyme research at the bench, Tanya now focuses on developing digital media as part of NEB’s Marketing team.

Favorite Sites:

Andy Maloney: I think digital media should always have a purpose and his is right there in the opening line. I know what I am looking at and why I would want to look at it.

Jim Caryl: It’s pure art. I couldn’t stop myself from reading every page and looking at every photo – the homepage drew me in and I visited for quite a while.

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Kristy Meyer |  Social Media Manager, Sigma-Aldrich

In preparation for life as a science communicator, Kristy spent 6 years supporting and deciphering online software tools for DNA sequence and gene expression data.  Kristy works closely with the Sigma Life Science Product Management team to develop materials for social media communications from Sigma Life Science to the science community that it serves.

Favorite Sites:

Andy Maloney: Andy did a really good job of using an image that shows his “zen” place, and it’s very easy to learn more about what he does based on the setup and the text he used.

Marina Murashev: I’m a sucker for rivers, and Marina’s rocky river is right up my alley. Also, she outlined her research really nicely and I could get to the links easily.

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[poll id=”69″]

.UPDATE: Congratulations to the Top 5 (six with the tie…) websites: Jessica Morrison, Andy Maloney, Marina Manrique, Jaime Freitas, Jim Caryl and Camille Delebecque!  And thanks to our collaborator, flavors.me, for providing each of the winners with a full year of free flavors upgrades!

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Which homepages are your favorites and why?