Q: How do I search for people at MIT using the web.mit.edu search page?
What happened to the "people search" page?
Context
The legacy search function previously located at web.mit.edu/people.html was retired and all links have been redirected to the current search feature at: https://web.mit.edu/search/
Answer
The main MIT search includes the ability to search for people using the same data source as the legacy search page.
Type a query into the search box such as a person’s name, MIT username, MIT email address, or phone number. Before you hit enter, you will see results appear instantly, including for People. From there, you can click into a person’s contact record directly. If you hit enter, you’ll see results displayed in tabs for Websites, Locations, and People. Clicking on the People tab will return the full list of results from the MIT directory.
Once you’ve clicked into the People tab, results from subsequent searches using the box above during the same visit will default to the People tab, so you do not need to return to the main MIT page to start a new search for a person.
The main MIT search will return People results for terms similar to the following examples:
- Last name: 'rogers'
- Full name: 'William Rogers', 'Rogers William'
- Phone number: '617-253-1000', '6172531000', '31000'
- MIT username: 'wbrogers'
- MIT email: 'wbrogers@mit.edu'
Note all of the above must be exact matches. Searches are case-insensitive, meaning that 'Rogers' will return the same results as 'rogers'.
For partial-match or wildcard searches, two or more partial words must be included. For example, a search for 'Will Roge' or 'William Roger' would return a result for William Barton Rogers.
If you are unsure how the name is spelled, check the "Look up people by 'last name sounds like'" box and enter a last name to search for names similar to your query.
Search results are displayed in tabs which group results for Websites, Locations, and People. Click into the People tab to see results from the MIT people directory.
People results include the following fields if values are present and not suppressed.
For students:
- Name
- Student year
- Address (building and room number)
- Department
- School
For staff:
- Name
- Phone
- Fax
- Address (building and room number)
- Department
- Title
No results are returned for affiliates.