Dr. Edward F. Kelly is currently a Professor in the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), a research unit housed administratively within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD in psycholinguistics and cognitive science from Harvard in 1971, and spent the next 15-plus years working mainly in parapsychology. Between 1988 and 2002 he worked with a large neuroscience group at UNC-Chapel Hill, mainly carrying out EEG and fMRI studies of human somatosensory cortical adaptation to natural tactile stimuli. He returned full-time to psychical research in 2002, serving as lead author of Irreducible Mind (2007), Beyond Physicalism (2015), and Consciousness Unbound (2023). He is now returning to his central long-term research interest—application of modern functional neuroimaging methods to intensive psychophysiological studies of paranormal or ‘psi’ processes and psi-conducive altered states of consciousness in exceptional subjects. Prof. Kelly is a member of Essentia Foundation’s Academic Advisory Board.
