About
How XeraLink works
Data sources
Profiles, appointments, publication lists and courses come from each university's public expert directory (for McMaster, McMaster Experts). Research areas come from OpenAlex topics of each person's papers. Citation counts come from Dimensions.
Jev
Ranking and matching use Jev, a model by TypeSafe that answers narrow questions with calibrated probabilities instead of writing text. It judges; it does not invent facts about anyone.
Freshness
Directories are re-imported regularly. People who leave a university's directory stay reachable by link but are marked as no longer listed and are hidden from search.
Who is XeraLink for?+
Anyone looking for a research supervisor or collaborator: students applying to master's or PhD programs, graduates looking for a postdoc, and researchers looking for a collaborator at another university.
Which universities are included?+
We are starting with McMaster University, with every faculty member listed in its public directory. More universities are on the way.
How does the search rank professors?+
A full text search first finds faculty whose research areas, recent paper titles, courses and bio use the words you typed. Jev then reads the leading candidates and grades how closely each one's research matches your topic, from “same field” to “strong match”, and picks their most relevant paper.
Does a professor take students if they teach graduate courses?+
Not necessarily. The supervision signals on each profile (graduate courses, recent papers, senior authorship) come from public records and show who is likely active. Always ask the professor or the graduate program whether they are taking new students.
How should I contact a potential supervisor?+
Read two or three of their recent papers first. Then send a short email that says what you want to study, why their work fits, and what you have done so far, with your CV attached. Each profile has a draft that cites one of their papers to start from.
Is my CV stored?+
No. The file is read on our server to extract its text, parts of the text are sent to Jev to be judged, and nothing is kept after the results are shown. See the privacy policy for details.
Something on a profile is wrong. What can I do?+
Use “Suggest a correction” at the bottom of the profile, or the form below. Profiles are refreshed from the university's public directory, so corrections there also reach XeraLink.
Found a bug, a wrong profile, or a university you want added? Tell us here. See also the privacy policy and terms of use.