For high-school students
Reach out to the people
behind the research you read.
Find researchers who list your area, read what they publish, and send a request short enough to answer.
From your profile to a reply
Four things, in order. The writing stays yours.
- 01
Fill in your profile once
Coursework, projects, skills, and the areas you care about. That background is what goes out with every request you send.
- 02
Search by research area
Filter the directory by subfield, or let the recommender rank faculty against the interests on your profile.
- 03
Read the profile before you write
Each faculty page lists the publications its owner entered and the areas they work in, so you can tell what the group is doing now.
- 04
Send one request, not an essay
Three fields — topic, background, goals — open a single thread with that professor. No template writes it for you.
What students ask about
A request works when it asks something the person you are writing to can answer. These are the asks that do.
A method you are trying to use
Ask the author about a dataset, a protocol, or a limitation they mention in a paper.
Whether they take students
Ask whether a group takes high-school or early-undergraduate students, and what they would need from you.
Whether your approach holds up
Get input on your method before you spend a term running something that will not answer your question.
Which subfield is yours
Find the areas inside a broad major — and the people in them — before you have to pick one.
Every profile you read was reviewed by a person.
Professors apply with an institutional address and an admin checks it before the profile joins the directory. Accounts that cannot be matched stay out, and students can only message faculty inside it.
Ask one question well, and the next one gets easier.
Free for students. No card.