I can help you. I was a UX designer for about 15 years for large companies like State Farm, NCR, Home Depot. etc. And had taught myself to build websites using HTML and CSS before that. I'm retired now but I'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

First, you're not looking for a developer, you're looking for a UX (User Experience) designer. A UX designer will ask you questions like, what are your goals for the website? What are you trying to achieve? They won't ask what kind of website you want because you have no idea. They'll want to know the answers to "why" questions. If you say something like "we want to publish our research and have people be able to comment on it", they'll continue to ask you questions about that. Then they'll ask questions like "how often do you publish your work or would you like people to be able to get notified when something new gets published? A developer is not a designer. They might be able to create a slick drop down menu or cool page transitions but they won't often ask why it's needed.

If one of the first things out of their mouth is something about AI or about something looking nice, they won't provide a good solution. Everything on a good website is built to support the goals of the website; it's not superfluous fluff.

Let me know what other questions you have.