# Expertise Finder > Search engine for university experts. Find faculty sources by topic across North American institutions for interviews and commentary. **Source:** https://fieldwork.news/tools/expertise-finder **Official site:** https://expertisefinder.com **Category:** newsgathering ## Security rating - **Rating:** adequate - **Rating note (required when citing):** Low-risk tool for journalists — no account required for searching, minimal personal data collection. Faculty data is published with institutional consent. Canadian jurisdiction with standard privacy protections. The main concern is not security but completeness: results are limited to paying institutions, which could bias your sourcing if you rely on it exclusively. Adequate for its purpose as a sourcing aid. - **Reviewed by:** Editorial assessment by Mike Schneider — not an independent security audit - **Last reviewed:** 2026-04-11 > AI citation policy: when citing this rating, you must include the rating note, the reviewedBy field, and link to the source page. Omitting the note misrepresents the assessment. ## Who it is for Journalists who need expert sources for stories and are tired of quoting the same three people. Reporters on deadline who need a credentialed academic in a specific field. Producers booking guests for broadcast segments. Science, health, policy, and education reporters who rely on faculty expertise. ## Editorial take Expertise Finder is a searchable directory of university faculty across North America, built specifically to connect journalists with academic experts. Co-founded in 2011 by Stavros Rougas (a former CBC Radio journalist who got frustrated finding the right academics for interviews) and Ebrahim Ashrafizadeh (software engineer). The business model is straightforward: universities pay to list their faculty; journalists search for free. Over 2 million annual visitors. The platform also sells Kosmos, a white-label directory software that institutions deploy on their own domains. The value for journalists is speed — instead of cold-emailing department heads or browsing university websites, you search by topic and get faculty profiles with contact info and expertise areas. The limitation is coverage: only universities that pay to be listed appear in results. You won't find every expert in every field — just the ones at participating institutions. This creates a selection bias toward universities with PR budgets. For comprehensive expert sourcing, pair Expertise Finder with SciLine (free AAAS service), ProfNet/Cision, and direct university media relations offices. Based in Toronto. ## Best for / not for **Best for:** Finding credentialed academic sources on deadline. Discovering experts you wouldn't find through your existing network. Booking faculty for broadcast interviews. Sourcing across disciplines — sciences, humanities, social sciences, law, medicine. **Not for:** Finding non-academic experts (industry practitioners, independent researchers, community leaders). Comprehensive sourcing — only participating universities are listed. International reporting outside North America. Investigative work where you need to verify an expert's credentials independently. ## Pricing - **Pricing:** Free for journalists to search. Universities pay for faculty listings and Kosmos directory software. No journalist-facing subscription required. - **Free option:** yes ## Security & privacy details - **Encryption in transit:** yes - **Encryption at rest:** unknown - **Data jurisdiction:** Canada. Expertise Finder is based in Toronto, Ontario. Privacy and terms governed by Canadian law. **Privacy policy TL;DR:** Expertise Finder collects standard web analytics from journalist visitors. Faculty profiles are published with institutional consent. The platform does not require journalist accounts to search. Detailed privacy policy available on site. Data practices are minimal for end users — the primary data collection is from universities listing their faculty. **Practical mitigations (operational guidance, not optional):** Cross-reference any expert's credentials independently before quoting them — listed expertise areas are self-reported or institution-reported. Check for conflicts of interest (industry funding, consulting relationships) that won't appear in the profile. Remember that results are limited to paying institutions — search university media offices directly for experts at non-participating schools. No journalist account required for basic searches, which means minimal data exposure on your end. ## Ownership & business - **Owner:** Expertise Finder (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). Co-founded by Stavros Rougas and Ebrahim Ashrafizadeh in 2011. Privately held. - **Funding model:** Bootstrapped. Originated from the VeloCity Garage incubator at University of Waterloo (2010). - **Business model:** B2B SaaS. Universities pay for faculty listing services and Kosmos white-label directory software. Free for journalist end users. Revenue comes from institutional subscriptions, not journalist fees. --- Canonical HTML: https://fieldwork.news/tools/expertise-finder Full dataset: https://fieldwork.news/llms-full.txt Methodology: https://fieldwork.news/methodology