Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is really tough - humans are hardwired to form connections and remember people by recognizing faces. This, of course, is also exactly the problem, in that it allows for bias or prejudice of many different types to influence our judgements. I think I agree with you that the downsides and inherent unfairness of the genetic attractiveness lottery outweigh the upsides of attaching a name to a face. It's an empirical…
With real names, faces are just one google search away for most people (and we could debate further what would it mean if a face wasn't found). Functionally the website would be a wasteland of white sameness without portraits, no way around that I think. I'm not entirely convinced this service solves the linkedin pitfall of mingling jumphoppers racking up impressive paper stats and polluting the signal.
Move the photo on the profile to the bottom of it, and make it optional.