Julie Beischel, PhD, Co-Founder and Director of Research at the Windbridge Institute, holds a BS in Environmental Sciences (1996) from Northern Arizona University and a PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology with a minor in Microbiology and Immunology (2003) from the University of Arizona (UA). Dr. Beischel served as the William James Post-doctoral Fellow in Mediumship and Survival Research and Co-Director of the VERITAS Research Program at the UA. When the funding for mediumship research at the UA ended and that research program closed, Dr. Beischel moved the research and the screening and training of prospective research mediums to the Windbridge Institute in January of 2008. Dr. Beischel's academic training in several interdisciplinary scientific fields allows her to design and apply traditional research methods to investigating more unconventional topics of study. She has received research grants from the Bial Foundation and the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Dr. Beischel is a full member of the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) and the Parapsychological Association (PA) and serves on the scientific advisory boards of the Rhine Research Center (RRC) and the Forever Family Foundation (FFF). Her research has been presented at scientific meetings of the SSE, the PA, the RRC, the FFF, and the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness as well as the Toward a Science of Consciousness conferences and has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Transpersonal Psychology Review, Australian Journal of Parapsychology, and Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.