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Recently in a conference, I met a professor from an esteemed university and head of a research group I have been following. I told him about my research and he gave me his email address (though I could easily find it over the web, he personally wrote it down for me). He told me to write to him and he will direct me to his post-doc and see how we can collaborate. His research group has some testing facilities I would love to work with.

The following is the email I am aiming to write to him. Any corrections and/or suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Dear Professor XYZ,

Hope you are doing fine. We met at ABC conference, in TTT a couple of days ago. I introduced myself as the PHD student at 123 University and expressed my willingness to work on a collaborative project with your research group (utilizing your practical testbed for DDD project).

First of all, I appreciate the time you spent with me, and the opportunity to introduce myself, my research, and my interest in utilizing your testing facilities. Second, I would like your advice on how I can further proceed to initiate a collaboration between your research facilities and our RRR research group.

I will wait for your reply.

Thanks again,

Kashan

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I always suggest being a bit more succinct, and mentioning (but not delving into!) the technical aspects of your work. How about this:

Dear Professor XYZ,

This is [name]; we met at AAA conference in TTT a couple of days ago. As you may recall, I am working on [xxx] and you suggested that your post-doc could get me started in your testbed for my [yyy] project.

I'm very eager to pursue this. Could you please introduce me to your post-doc? I'd be happy to set up a call or provide any information you might need.

Thanks in advance; I really appreciate the opportunity,

Kashan

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    I would suggest changing This is [name] to My name is [name].
    – camden_kid
    Apr 26, 2018 at 8:50
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    @camden_kid It might depend on where you are from but to me My name is [name] would make it sound like I have never met the person that I am writing to before.
    – Uberswe
    Apr 26, 2018 at 9:45
  • @MarkusTenghamn Yes, I agree, either may depend on where you are from. My suggestion was from a British perspective and the fact that the prof may not remember the name since they met briefly.
    – camden_kid
    Apr 26, 2018 at 9:52
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    To me, "my name is name" sounds like a cold-call -- if the prof also didn't remember the name, he would likely assume the mail was from some random person, and so would give it very low priority. "This is name" sounds like they already have a relationship - if the prof doesn't remember the name, he'll probably keep reading at least to the end of the first sentence, at which point he'll be reminded. That said, I know very little about British English, maybe things are different there.
    – cag51 ♦
    Apr 26, 2018 at 14:34
  • I have written to professor and he responded me to write him back. I did that too. After that, I have not heard anything from him. How can I ask him politely if he is still interested or not?
    – SJa
    May 11, 2018 at 4:09

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