A free resource from Eat The Elephant · A 501(c)(3) nonprofit
Researcher Search
20 researchers and professors a high-school student might learn from — or, where a real route exists, do research with. Search by field and by location — virtual, California, and beyond — and look for the flag that matters most: takes high-school students, where their own public pages prove it. Every record links to the person's own institutional or lab page.
Ratings and guidance by Meridian — see “How we rate” for the full rubric.
What makes a researcher worth reaching out to — and what the stars mean
A record, multiplied by a door
A researcher is not a product and charges a student nothing — the scarce thing is attention. So Meridian's stars measure mentorship value: the weight of the research record, multiplied by the evidence that students actually get some of it. A lab page that lists student researchers, a program that places high-schoolers in labs, a professor who personally mentors four high-school interns a year — that evidence is the differentiator, and it is why an accessible researcher at a less famous institution can out-rate an inaccessible star at a famous one.
Publication record, standing in the field, and student outcomes count — but only where the researcher's own public pages evidence them. Where a factor can't be evidenced, it doesn't move the rating.
The Fame Ceiling
Some of the most decorated scientists alive appear in this directory at 3 stars. That is the rubric working as designed: if a record shows a major research record but no published evidence of mentoring young students and no published route in, the rating caps at 3★ — whatever the prizes. The basis line on every record says which kind of 3 it is, because "world-class but unreachable" and "solid researcher, thin student path" mean opposite things.
This directory links to public pages only — it publishes no one's personal contact details, and it never writes outreach for you. Students write their own emails; that is part of the learning. Start from the person's own page, where any public contact route they choose to publish lives.
Every fact here comes from the researcher's own public institutional or lab page, linked on each record so you can verify it in one click. Records we have not yet checked against that page carry an Unverified label — a statement about our homework, not about the researcher.
Want help planning a research outreach? Meridian — the counselors behind these ratings — offers a free initial meeting to weigh a research plan against your student's actual profile. No obligation; the directory above stays free either way.
Book a free initial meeting