Spend Less Time Hunting,
More Time Applying.
Finding the right research supervisor is one of the most consequential decisions in an academic career. Most applicants spend 10–20 hours combing through department pages — only to find dead links and inactive labs. We're building a better way.
“I have a master's in mechatronics engineering, and I lived this problem myself — weeks of opening tabs, guessing which professors were still active, and second-guessing every cold email. It was exhausting and demoralizing. I built PI Finder because if a tool had solved this for me, it would have changed how I applied. My hope is that it does exactly that for you.”
Why we built this
PI Finder combines verified research records with AI that reads each professor's recent work, ranks them against your background, and explains the fit. Every result is checked against a working page and recent activity before it reaches you — no made-up names, no inactive labs, no wasted cold emails.
It comes from a real frustration shared by applicants everywhere: days of opening browser tabs, only to email professors who'd moved institutions, retired, or stopped taking students. We're building the tool we wish we'd had.
The problems we set out to solve
Generic AI tools hallucinate. Ask a free chatbot for supervisors or an SOP and it invents professor names, dead emails, and facts about labs — then the document it writes is generic and needs heavy rewriting before it’s usable.
PI Finder checks every professor against their real published work, then uses AI to rank them for you and to write an SOP and cold email grounded in your actual CV and that specific professor — personal, not a template you have to fix.
Agencies charge a lot. A single custom SOP or cold-email package from an application consultant can cost more than a whole season of searching — and you still don’t control the process.
You get tailored SOPs and cold emails for a fraction of that price, on demand, for every professor you want to reach — with the verified shortlist to send them to.
Applicants lose track. Once you’re emailing dozens of professors, it’s easy to forget who you contacted, who needs a follow-up, who declined, and who invited you to interview.
A built-in outreach tracker keeps every professor in one board — from first email to follow-up to interview or decision — so nothing slips through the cracks.
The old way vs. PI Finder
The old way
- ✕Dozens of browser tabs, department by department
- ✕Emailing professors who’ve moved or retired
- ✕Rewriting a generic SOP for every application
- ✕Losing track of who you contacted and when
✓ With PI Finder
- A verified shortlist in about two minutes
- Only current, actively-affiliated supervisors
- SOPs & cold emails tailored from your CV
- An outreach tracker that remembers everything
Real-time verification
Every result is checked at the time of your query — we confirm the lab page is live, the contact email domain is valid, and recent papers resolve — and drop the ones we can't verify. Never a stale database.
Degree-level intelligence
PhD and Postdoc searches follow fundamentally different logic. PhD mode prioritizes open positions and funding; Postdoc mode targets active grants and lab size.
Structured output
Results come as a clean PDF you can act on — lab URLs, summaries, recent papers, and contact emails in one place.
Who is this for?
PhD applicants — finding a supervisor whose research matches yours is the single biggest factor in admission success. PI Finder shortlists verified, actively-recruiting professors so you can focus on writing the perfect email instead of hunting for names.
Postdoc applicants — the postdoc market runs on relationships, not job boards — a large share of positions are never formally advertised and are filled by reaching the right professor directly. PI Finder surfaces professors with active grants and the right lab size, drafts a tailored cold email for each, and helps you track your outreach — turning the hidden job market into a concrete, workable list.
Start the search that actually gets answered.
Your first verified search is free — see real supervisors for your field in about two minutes. No credit card.