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Ed May’s interest in serious research of parapsychological phenomena in 1975 when he joined the on-going U.S. Government-sponsored work at SRI International (formerly called Stanford Research Institute). Having spent the first part of his research career in the discipline for which he earned his Ph.D. in 1968 from the University of Pittsburgh, Parapsychology was a bit of a leap. Before leaving that career in Low Energy Experimental Nuclear Physics, he had published 16 papers in the peer-reviewed physics literature including his report of the first measurement of the singlet state of the deuteron, which appeared in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters.

He did advance studies in his new area, and in 1985, he became the SRI program’s director. In 1991, he shifted the effort to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), another US Defense Contractor. His association with government-sponsored parapsychology research ended in 1995, when the program, then called Star Gate, was closed by the US Government.

When the research was declassified in 2000, Dr. May was able to publish groundbreaking results and theories in the peer-reviewed literature -- the latest of which appeared in an abstracted medical journal. 1

Dr. May has managed complex, interdisciplinary research projects for the US federal government since 1985. He presided over 70% of the funding ($20M+) and 85% of the data collection for the government’s 22-year involvement in parapsychological research. His responsibilities included fund raising, personnel management, project administration and planning, and he was the guiding force for and active in the technical research program. Currently, Dr. May is the Executive Director of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory, which now resides within the Laboratories for Fundamental Research.

Dr. May’s approach has earned him an international reputation for his research rigor and excellence even though the topic is considered highly controversial. He is the author or co-author of a large number of papers, reports, proposals and presentations from both of his career activities.

He recently was honored to give a public talk about intelligence collection at the World War II famous site, Bletchley Park, in the UK. His presentations — mostly to skeptical audiences — have been accepted worldwide, including such venues as Harvard University, the Universities of California at Los Angeles and at Davis, Stanford University, the University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Cambridge, Eötvös Loránd University, the University of Stockholm, and Imperial College London to name but a few.

The Parapsychological Association, an affiliate member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, granted him the Outstanding Achievement Award in 1996. For his contribution and research excellence and the Association presented him the Outstanding Career Achievement award in 2007. He was President of The Parapsychological Association in 1997 and has served often on its Board of Directors.

To learn more about the Star Gate era and the research since then, including the complete set of publications, please visit www.LFR.ORG.

1 May, Paulinyi & Vassy (2005). Anomalous Anticipatory Skin Conductance Response to Acoustic Stimuli: Experimental Results and Speculation About a Mechanism. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine . 11 , 4, 695-702.