diff --git a/ietf/person/forms.py b/ietf/person/forms.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..039d0cb1b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ietf/person/forms.py
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+from django.utils import simplejson
+from django.utils.html import escape
+from django.utils.functional import lazy
+from django import forms
+from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse as urlreverse
+
+from ietf.person.models import *
+
+def json_emails(emails):
+    return simplejson.dumps([{"id": e.address + "", "name": escape(u"%s <%s>" % (e.person.name, e.address))} for e in emails])
+
+class EmailsField(forms.CharField):
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        kwargs["max_length"] = 1000
+        if not "help_text" in kwargs:
+            kwargs["help_text"] = "Type in name to search for person"
+        super(EmailsField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+        self.widget.attrs["class"] = "emails-field"
+        self.widget.attrs["data-ajax-url"] = lazy(urlreverse, str)("ajax_search_emails") # make this lazy to prevent initialization problem
+
+    def prepare_value(self, value):
+        if not value:
+            return ""
+        if isinstance(value, str):
+            return value
+        return json_emails(value)
+
+    def clean(self, value):
+        value = super(EmailsField, self).clean(value)
+        return Email.objects.filter(address__in=[x.strip() for x in value.split(",") if x.strip()]).select_related("person")
+
diff --git a/ietf/person/urls.py b/ietf/person/urls.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..03a0ecc2a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ietf/person/urls.py
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+from django.conf.urls.defaults import patterns, url
+
+urlpatterns = patterns('',
+        (r'^search/$', "ietf.person.views.ajax_search_emails", None, 'ajax_search_emails'),
+)
diff --git a/ietf/person/views.py b/ietf/person/views.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..be305361c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ietf/person/views.py
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+from django.http import Http404, HttpResponse
+
+from ietf.person.models import *
+from ietf.person.forms import json_emails
+
+def ajax_search_emails(request):
+    emails = Email.objects.filter(person__alias__name__istartswith=request.GET.get('q','')).order_by('person__name').distinct()
+    return HttpResponse(json_emails(emails), mimetype='application/json')
diff --git a/ietf/urls.py b/ietf/urls.py
index 56285d3a8..d3a686ac7 100644
--- a/ietf/urls.py
+++ b/ietf/urls.py
@@ -63,6 +63,7 @@ urlpatterns = patterns('',
     (r'^wg/', include('ietf.wginfo.urls')),
     (r'^wgcharter/', include('ietf.wgcharter.urls')),
     (r'^cookies/', include('ietf.cookies.urls')),
+    (r'^person/', include('ietf.person.urls')),
     (r'^submit/', include('ietf.submit.urls')),
     (r'^streams/', include('ietf.ietfworkflows.urls')),