How can I connect with other academics with similar research interests?
If you are interested in being able to create a personal web page and be able to upload your papers to share with others then take a look at academia.edu
This site can be searched by the name of an academic institution and then by department. It is easy to sign up and if you upload any papers you retain all your rights as to copyright and so on.
There is a nice overview and review at:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080918-academia-edu-traces-academic-family-tree-facebook-style.html