SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES (2009)
Paul Cowdell has a BA in Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He spent some years working as a freelance performer (actor/clown/musician), during which time he began conducting fieldwork in traditional song. He took an MA in Folklore and Cultural Studies at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition (NATCECT) at the University of Sheffield, graduating with a Distinction. An essay submitted for that course, on dating an unpublished agricultural protest song, won the Folklore Society’s President’s Prize. He worked as a fieldworker for the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival, 2007, where he also worked as a presenter. He is currently researching contemporary belief in ghosts for a PhD at the University of Hertfordshire, and has recently been elected to the committee of the Folklore Society. He has written articles on folklore about rats, cannibal songs and occupational ghostlore.
Anthony Hegarty taught English in inner city London Schools for some time before becoming interested in the welfare of problem adolescents. With the demise of the Inner London Education Authority he co directed a small scale theatre company for five years. More recently he was responsible for teacher welfare in County Mayo, Ireland, as part of a trial Employee Assistance Programme. He has an M.Sc. in Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology from Liverpool John Moores University and lives on the West Coast of Ireland.
Ian Kidd is a final year doctoral postgraduate at the Department of Philosophy, Durham University. His thesis is a study of the later philosophy of Paul Feyerabend, a leading philosopher of science of the last century, and his research interests focus on the cognitive and cultural authority of the scientific worldview, especially in relation to allegedly 'non-scientific' beliefs and practices. He also has a long-term research interest in the life and work of Charles Hoy Fort, and has had several articles published in the Fortean Times.
David Luke, PhD, is President of the Parapsychological Association, the professional body for researchers in this field, and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich where he teaches an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experiences. As a writer and researcher he has a special interest in altered states of consciousness and he has studied ostensibly paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Hackney, London.
Chris Roe, PhD, was a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh and member of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit. He obtained his PhD in 1996 for work on the psychology of psychic reading. After teaching at the University of St Andrews he moved to the University of Northampton, where he is now senior lecturer in Psychology and Research Leader for the Psychology Division. At Northampton he co-teaches a final-year module on Parapsychology and anomalous experiences, and is Course Leader of their MSc in Transpersonal Psychology and Consciousness Studies; he currently supervises six PhD projects concerned with parapsychology and transpersonal psychology. In 1999 he won the D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature. He was a Perrott-Warrick Researcher 2000-5, working on a project to explore the interaction between sender, receiver and experimenter in free response ESP experiments, and has completed other projects funded by the Institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygeine, Germany, the Bial Foundation, Portugal, and the Society for Psychical Research, England. He is currently a Council Member of the Society for Psychical Research and the Parapsychology Foundation's International Affiliate for England; he has served as a Board Member for the
Parapsychological Association on three occasions. He is Editor of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and an Editorial Consultant for the European Journal of Parapsychology. His research interests include the nature and origin of paranormal beliefs and experiences as well as experimental tests of putative PK and ESP effects, particularly looking for psychological correlates.
Tamlyn Ryan has just begun the second year of her PhD in the Department of Sociology at the University of York, UK. Her research concerns psychic-spiritual practices and how these are facilitated through the internet. This builds on her wider research interests in virtual communities, contemporary spiritual practices both on and off the internet and, more recently, autoethnography as a research method. Tamlyn also has a life-long personal interest in psychic spirituality and for seven years prior to moving to York, she co-run a psychic-spiritual discussion community group. She has a BA (Hons) Sociology and Social Policy (University of Liverpool) and graduated in 2008 with an MA Social Research (University of York).
Anthony Hegarty taught English in inner city London Schools for some time before becoming interested in the welfare of problem adolescents. With the demise of the Inner London Education Authority he co directed a small scale theatre company for five years. More recently he was responsible for teacher welfare in County Mayo, Ireland, as part of a trial Employee Assistance Programme. He has an M.Sc. in Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology from Liverpool John Moores University and lives on the West Coast of Ireland.
Ian Kidd is a final year doctoral postgraduate at the Department of Philosophy, Durham University. His thesis is a study of the later philosophy of Paul Feyerabend, a leading philosopher of science of the last century, and his research interests focus on the cognitive and cultural authority of the scientific worldview, especially in relation to allegedly 'non-scientific' beliefs and practices. He also has a long-term research interest in the life and work of Charles Hoy Fort, and has had several articles published in the Fortean Times.
David Luke, PhD, is President of the Parapsychological Association, the professional body for researchers in this field, and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich where he teaches an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experiences. As a writer and researcher he has a special interest in altered states of consciousness and he has studied ostensibly paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Hackney, London.
Chris Roe, PhD, was a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh and member of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit. He obtained his PhD in 1996 for work on the psychology of psychic reading. After teaching at the University of St Andrews he moved to the University of Northampton, where he is now senior lecturer in Psychology and Research Leader for the Psychology Division. At Northampton he co-teaches a final-year module on Parapsychology and anomalous experiences, and is Course Leader of their MSc in Transpersonal Psychology and Consciousness Studies; he currently supervises six PhD projects concerned with parapsychology and transpersonal psychology. In 1999 he won the D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature. He was a Perrott-Warrick Researcher 2000-5, working on a project to explore the interaction between sender, receiver and experimenter in free response ESP experiments, and has completed other projects funded by the Institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygeine, Germany, the Bial Foundation, Portugal, and the Society for Psychical Research, England. He is currently a Council Member of the Society for Psychical Research and the Parapsychology Foundation's International Affiliate for England; he has served as a Board Member for the
Parapsychological Association on three occasions. He is Editor of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and an Editorial Consultant for the European Journal of Parapsychology. His research interests include the nature and origin of paranormal beliefs and experiences as well as experimental tests of putative PK and ESP effects, particularly looking for psychological correlates.
Tamlyn Ryan has just begun the second year of her PhD in the Department of Sociology at the University of York, UK. Her research concerns psychic-spiritual practices and how these are facilitated through the internet. This builds on her wider research interests in virtual communities, contemporary spiritual practices both on and off the internet and, more recently, autoethnography as a research method. Tamlyn also has a life-long personal interest in psychic spirituality and for seven years prior to moving to York, she co-run a psychic-spiritual discussion community group. She has a BA (Hons) Sociology and Social Policy (University of Liverpool) and graduated in 2008 with an MA Social Research (University of York).