University People Finder — Professor, Faculty & Academic Contact Extractor

Extract verified contact data for professors, lecturers, researchers, and department heads from top universities of the world. This university faculty finder gives you structured, ready-to-use academic contact data — no manual searching, no official API required.

Whether you're building a professor email list for EdTech outreach, identifying higher education decision-makers for B2B sales, or sourcing academic contacts for research collaboration — this Actor delivers the faculty data you need at scale.

What does University People Finder do?

University People Finder gives you fast, filtered access to a curated dataset of faculty and staff from top universities of the world. Pick one or more institutions, add a free-text search and optional department or school filters, and the Actor returns matching records — names, emails, phones, offices, profile URLs, research areas, bios, and more — straight to your Apify dataset.

The dataset is continuously growing as we add more world-class institutions. You get the full Apify platform on top: scheduled runs, API access, integrations with Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, and webhook notifications when a run completes.

What data does this university faculty extractor return?

Every record is structured and export-ready. Each faculty entry includes:

• University — the institution the person belongs to
• Name — full name, plus separate first_name and last_name
• Title — academic title (e.g. Professor, Associate Professor, Lecturer)
• Titles — list of all titles held by the person
• Position — primary position
• Department — academic department
• Department (hierarchical) — full department path where available
• Academic groups — affiliated centers, institutes, or working groups
• School — school or college within the university
• Email — direct email address
• Phone — direct phone number
• Office — physical office location
• Profile URL — link to the person's official faculty page
• Website — personal or lab website
• Image URL — official faculty photo
• Research areas — tagged research interests and focus areas
• Bio summary — short biography where available

All records are structured and downloadable in JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML — or accessible directly via the Apify API.

Why use this university faculty contact database?

University and college websites publish faculty directories publicly, but extracting contacts manually is slow and doesn't scale. This Actor automates that process and gives you:

• Structured data — clean, consistent fields across every record from every institution
• Filterable by university, department, or school — target exactly who you need
• Free-text search across name, email, department, school, title, position, research areas, and bio
• Email-only filter — drop records without an email when you need contact info
• Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or connect to your CRM via Apify integrations
• Runs on demand or on a schedule — keep your contact list fresh automatically
• No coding required — configure inputs and run directly from your browser

Who uses university faculty contact data?

EdTech & education software companies

Reach professors and department heads who evaluate and adopt new tools for their classrooms, labs, and institutions. Faculty are the primary buyers — or the key influencers — for academic software, LMS platforms, and digital learning tools.

Academic publishers & textbook companies

Connect with professors who assign course materials and lecturers who review new titles. Build targeted outreach lists segmented by subject area or department.

Research & survey firms

Find domain experts for academic surveys, expert panels, or qualitative research interviews. Filter by department or research focus to reach the most relevant contacts.

B2B sales teams

Universities are large institutions with real procurement budgets. Reach decision-makers across departments for software, services, and equipment.

Conference organizers & event planners

Build speaker invitation lists for academic conferences, panels, and professional development events. Target by subject area, department, or institution.

Recruiters & talent teams

Identify academic professionals for industry advisory boards, research consulting roles, or direct-hire opportunities in the private sector.

Journalists & policy researchers

Quickly identify subject-matter experts across top universities for interviews, expert quotes, and background research.

How to find professor emails and academic contacts

Step 1 — Configure your search

Set your filters in the Input form. All fields are optional. When you open the form, the Universities field is empty (which means "search all") and Max results is pre-filled to 100 so your first run stays small while you experiment.

Input	Description
Universities	One or more universities to search. Leave empty to search every university in the dataset (this is the default). Pick specific ones only when you want to narrow down.
Search keyword	Free-text search across name, email, department, school, title, position, research areas, and bio (e.g. "machine learning", "economics").
Departments	Filter by department (e.g. Computer Science, Marketing, Biology).
Schools	Filter by school or college within the university (e.g. Business School, School of Medicine).
Only show faculty with an email address	Toggle on to drop records that don't have an email address. Useful for outreach lists.
Max results	Cap the number of records returned per run. Pre-filled to 100. Set to 0 for no limit. If you clear the field, it falls back to 1000.

Just click Start? With the defaults you'll get up to 100 faculty records spread across every university in the dataset — a quick sample to see what the data looks like. Bump up Max results (or set it to 0) when you're ready for a full export.

Step 2 — Run the Actor

Click Start and the Actor will return matching faculty records to your dataset.

Step 3 — Export and use

Download results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or HTML — or connect directly to tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Airtable, or Google Sheets via Apify integrations, Zapier, Make, and n8n.

Input

The Actor takes a single JSON object. All fields are optional.

{
    "universities": ["Harvard", "MIT"],
    "query": "machine learning",
    "departments": [],
    "schools": ["Harvard Business School"],
    "hasEmail": true,
    "limit": 500
}

Output

Each dataset item is one faculty record. Download as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML from the run page.

{
    "id": 1,
    "university": "Harvard",
    "name": "Rawi Abdelal",
    "first_name": "Rawi",
    "last_name": "Abdelal",
    "title": null,
    "department": "Business, Government & International Economy",
    "school": "Harvard Business School",
    "email": null,
    "phone": null,
    "office": null,
    "profile_url": "https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6628&click=byline",
    "website": null,
    "image_url": null,
    "research_areas": [],
    "bio_summary": null,
    "position": null,
    "academic_groups": [],
    "department_hierarchical": null,
    "titles": []
}

Missing fields are returned as null (not empty strings). List fields like research_areas, academic_groups, and titles come back as empty arrays when no values are available.

Data fields

Field	Type	Description
id	int	Internal row id (stable within a single dataset snapshot).
university	string	The university the person belongs to.
name, first_name, last_name	string	Full and split names.
title, titles, position	string / string[]	Position titles (single, list, primary).
department, department_hierarchical, school	string	Organizational placement.
academic_groups	string[]	Affiliated academic groups, centers, or institutes.
email, phone, office	string	Contact info (may be empty).
profile_url, website, image_url	string	Official faculty page, personal site, photo.
research_areas	string[]	Tagged research interests and focus areas.
bio_summary	string	Short biography where available.

Field completeness varies by university and by faculty member — some institutions publish more contact detail than others.

Filter faculty by university, department, or school

This university faculty scraper is built for precision targeting. You can narrow your results by:

• Institution — pick one university or run across many at once
• Academic department — STEM, business, humanities, medical schools, law, engineering, and more
• School or college — target a specific school within a university
• Free-text search — match on title, name, research area, or any visible field
• Email-only — restrict to records that include an email address

Export university faculty contacts to CSV or your CRM

All results are available in multiple export formats:

• CSV — ready to import into any email marketing or CRM platform
• JSON — for custom pipelines and integrations
• Excel (XLSX) — for manual review and segmentation
• HTML — for quick visual browsing
• Apify Dataset API — accessible programmatically for automated workflows

You can also connect this Actor to your stack using the Apify API or native integrations with Zapier, Make (formerly Integromat), and n8n.

Pricing & cost estimation

Runs are typically very fast — most queries finish in well under a minute. Cost scales with how many records you return, so use the Max results input while you're iterating on filters and remove the cap for full exports.

Tips and advanced options

• Narrow first, expand later. Start with one university plus a search query to see what comes back, then loosen filters.
• Use Max results for previews. Set it to 50 while you're iterating on filters; remove it for the full export.
• Combine with Apify integrations. Schedule a recurring run and pipe the dataset to Google Sheets, Slack, HubSpot, or a webhook.
• EdTech lead generation. Filter by department (e.g. Computer Science or Business) and toggle Only with email, then export to CSV for your outreach sequence.

Frequently asked questions

Is this data publicly available?

Yes. This Actor returns contact information that universities publish on their public-facing faculty directory pages. The data is intended for professional outreach and research purposes.

How fresh is the data?

The dataset is refreshed periodically. Schedule recurring runs in Apify to make sure your downstream lists stay current.

Can I pull data from multiple universities in one run?

Yes. Select multiple universities in the input — or leave the field empty to search across every university in the dataset.

Why are some fields empty?

Each university publishes a different subset of information. Email, phone, and office are particularly inconsistent. Use the Only with email toggle if you specifically need contact info.

What's the best way to use this for EdTech lead generation?

Filter by department (e.g. Computer Science or Business), turn on Only with email, then export to CSV for use in your email outreach sequence. Combine with school-level filters to build tightly segmented lists.

Which universities are covered?

The dataset covers top universities of the world and is continuously growing. Open the Universities dropdown in the Input form to see the current list.

Found a bug or want a university added?

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab — we actively expand coverage based on user requests.