Experts directory
Identity is a field with unusually visible authorship. The protocols have named editors, the platforms have founders who wrote the first version themselves, and the profession has an association because a handful of people decided to build one. This directory is for those people: protocol and standards authors, founders who built an identity platform from scratch, the maintainers of the open-source identity software much of the internet runs on, the academics whose papers became standard practice, the researchers who break these systems in public so they get fixed, the policy people who write the rules and the national schemes, the practitioners who run all of it, community builders, and the architects whose framing the rest of the field still argues inside.
Specifications read differently once you know who wrote them and what problem they were solving, so each profile links the standards, platforms, and guides that person's work produced. Profiles are built from public information only and link to each person's own work. We do not speak for anyone listed here, and inclusion is not an endorsement in either direction. For practitioners talking about systems they run today, see the interviews; for the people who build this site, the contributors page. Someone missing, or something wrong? Tell us below.
Protocol & Standards Authors
25The people who wrote the specifications identity actually runs on: OAuth, OpenID Connect, SAML, SCIM, WebAuthn, and the credential formats replacing them.
Founders & Builders
16People who built an identity platform from nothing, and in several cases created the product category it now sits in.
Open Source Builders
14Maintainers and founders of the open-source identity software a large part of the internet runs on, from identity providers to the libraries underneath them.
Researchers & Educators
13The academics whose papers became the practice: least privilege, role-based access control, the authentication protocol under Kerberos, and the usability research that ended password complexity rules.
Identity Security Researchers
5People who break identity systems in public so they can be fixed. Their tools and disclosures are why a long list of defensive controls exist at all.
Policy & Public Identity
7The people who write the rules and build the national systems: NIST’s digital identity guidelines, trust frameworks, and population-scale public identity infrastructure.
Community Builders
9The organizers, educators, and association founders who turned a scattered set of practitioners into a profession.
Practitioners & Operators
3People who run identity systems for a living and teach from it. A growing section, and the one closest to most readers of this site.
Architects & Strategists
5People who design how identity systems fit together at scale, and who set the terms the rest of the field argues in.
Learn what they built
The specs, the terms, and the implementation patterns these profiles point at.
- Start hereThe guided path through IAM, CIAM, PAM, IGA, and Zero Trust
- GuidesImplementation and buyer guides written by practitioners
- StandardsOAuth, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, WebAuthn, FIDO2, explained in depth
- GlossaryEvery identity term, defined without the marketing
- Developer recipesCopy-ready implementation patterns for real stacks
- ArticlesDeep dives on the decisions identity teams actually face
Nominate someone, or correct your own profile
This directory is built from public information, which means it is incomplete and will always be. If someone's work belongs here, tell us what they did and where it is documented. Self-nominations are fine: if you wrote a specification, maintain identity software, or published research the field uses, say so.
Corrections take the same route and go to the front of the queue. If you are listed here and want the entry changed, narrowed, or removed, we will do it. You can also email [email protected] directly with the same details if you prefer.
We publish checkable claims only, so a nomination without a source will come back to you with a request for one. Inclusion is not an endorsement, and nobody pays to be listed.