Creating a Google Site is easy, and can be done by anyone with a Google Account. Simply go to https://sites.google.com/ and click "Create", or follow the steps on the Creating a Site Google Help page.

Joseph has created a basic template that can be set up as a personal website for an academic -- graduate student, postdoc, faculty. 

To use it, choose to browse the Template Gallery when creating your site. 

In the search box, search for "Academic Research website for Individual Person – Graduate/PhD Student / Postdoc / Research Scientist / Faculty." It should be the second result, and if you click on it, you should see Joseph Williams listed as the author.

The Google sites help pages have information on using Google Sites. For a condensed version of basic information, we've put together a guide at tiny.cc/siteshelp, and there is more comprehensive guide at Google Sites knowledgebase.