This is a great idea. If I have time, I'll go looking for relevant academics. I think bitshares could do with academic exposure. If you look at the number of bitcoin papers in the public access journal arXiv, you'll find 35 (
http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+bitcoins/0/1/0/all/0/1). Only 35, for the biggest crypocurrency out there. If we can begin making dents in this, or if any of you guys wrote a paper about bitshares, it would gain bitshares some serious credibility (in some circles anway!).
Just thought of something...
If any of you are university students, then you'll own a university email address. Academics generally take more notice of emails from universities. Afterall, there are some real crackpot theories out there. So yeah, sending these emails from your university account is a good way of getting more attention...