Previous Fellows

2009
Dr. Nicola Jane Holt received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Northampton in 2007 for her thesis, “Creativity, States of Consciousness and Anomalous Cognition: The Role of Epistemological Flexibility in the Creative Process.” Dr. Holt’s doctoral research explored the links between multiple dimensions of creativity and both anomalous experiences and psi-performance, in the latter instance developing a protocol based on experience sampling methodology. Dr. Holt plans to use her grant to assist with the publication of papers based on her PhD findings. She is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the West of England, in Bristol. Dr. Holt was also a recipient of the Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship Award in 2002 when she was still a graduate student. For more details on Dr. Holt’s receipt of that award, click here and scroll down.

Dr. Marios Kittenis received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in June 2008 for his dissertation titled “Event-related EEG correlations between physically isolated participants.” His doctoral research involved a series of three experiments investigating ostensible anomalous correlations in brain activity between pairs of participants, with the first two experiments partially replicating the results of previous studies. The Bolton Fellowship will enable him to conduct additional analyses on the results of these experiments which are likely to further clarify the findings, and to analyze psychometric data collected during the experiments (such as the Tellegen Absorption Scale and the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory) with the aim of investigating possible correlations between individual variables and effect sizes. The Bolton Fellowship will also be used to disseminate the findings of this research through article publications in academic journals

2007
The eighth recipient of the Bolton Fellowship was Dr. Lance Storm who received his PhD. from the University of Adelaide in 2002. His dissertation was called “A Parapsychological Investigation of the Theory of Psychopraxia: Experimental and Theoretical Researches into an Alternative Theory Explaining Normal and Paranormal Phenomena.” For his dissertation, Dr. Storm conducted a series of four experiments to test Michael A. Thalbourne’s theory of psychopraxia, which is an attempt to unify both normal and paranormal psychology and motor action and cognition such that the conceptual distinction between (1) ESP and PK, and (2) normal information acquisition and normal motor control might be eliminated. Dr. Storm planned to use the funding provided by the Bolton Fellowship to follow a step-wise methodology designed to elicit stronger paranormal effects within belief subgroups (Sheep, Goats, Indecisives) taken from various samples used in his doctoral experiments. He also hoped to re-analyze data from his gambling experiment to determine if intuition and belief in good luck interact and predict psi. Finally, he planned to conduct a qualitative analysis on the transcripts of mentations given by participants in the vision-impaired experiment he conducted during his doctoral research. At the time of his award, Dr. Storm was a Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

2006
The seventh recipient of the Bolton Fellowship was Dr. Heather Wolffram who received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Queensland in September 2005 for her dissertation On the Borders of Science: Psychical Research and Parapsychology in Germany, c. 1870-1939. Dr. Wolffram’s doctoral thesis is a study of psychical research and parapsychology in Germany during the Imperial and inter-war periods. Building on recent studies in this field which have viewed modern occultism as an engagement with, rather than a rejection of modernity, Dr. Wolffram’s thesis argues that psychical research and parapsychology offered innovative, if ultimately flawed, solutions to the problems posed by scientific materialism. At the time of the award Dr. Wolffram was lecturing in the history of medicine at the University of Queensland, Australia.

2005
The sixth recipient of the Frances P. Bolton Fellowship for the year 2005 was Dr. Wellington Zangari of the University of São Paulo in Brazil. At the time of the award, Dr. Zangari planned to use his grant to continue developing materials from his doctoral research by focusing on data related to the cognitive features of the Umbanda mediums who participated in his study. The data were collected through interviews and through the completion of psychological instruments including scales designed to measure for cognitive features, dissociation, absorption, hypnotic susceptibility and fantasy proneness. With the article he planned to write on his findings, Zangari hoped to stimulate the scientific community to pay attention to the complexity of mediumship phenomenon and to adopt a more comprehensive perspective to the problem, one that would consider the “medium’s individual psychological, cultural and parapsychological characteristics in an integrated manner.”

2004
The fifth recipient of the Frances P. Bolton Fellowship for the year 2004 was Dr. Christine Simmonds of University College Northampton in England. At the time of the award, Dr. Simmonds planned to use her grant to assist with the publication of the results of her Ph.D. work and to develop new research projects deriving from her findings. Other papers planned at the time were intended to focus on: the interaction between pre-existing personality traits and states of consciousness as manipulated by methodology and psi performance; “receiver” personality variables and psi; “sender” personality variables and psi; an exploration of the overlap between psychopathology and psi experiences; subjective mental imagery and psi; and how and when people think they are being psychic.

2003
The fourth recipient of the Frances P. Bolton Fellowship for the year 2003 was Dr. Simon Sherwood of University College Northampton in England. At the time of the award, Dr. Sherwood planned to use his Fellowship grant to assist with the publication of various aspects of his doctoral research including a paper on the relationship between hypnagogic/hypnopompic states and OBEs, between temporal lobe functioning and such environmental variables as the earth’s geomagnetic field, and between sleep-related and anomalous experiences.

2002
The third recipient of the Frances P. Bolton Fellowship for the year 2002 was Dr. Kathy Dalton. At the time of the award, Dr. Dalton planned to conduct in-depth analyses of the several creativity instruments and their subscales used in her doctoral ganzfeld research so as to test whether there is a particular aspect of creativity that correlates with psi performance. (Dr. Dalton was also a recipient of the Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship Award in 1990 when she was still a graduate student.)

2001
The second recipient of the Frances P. Bolton Fellowship for the year 2001 was Dr. Cheryl Alexander, the Business Manager of the Parapsychological Association. At the time of the award, Dr. Alexander planned to write several articles from her doctoral dissertation which dealt with brain hemisphericity and psi phenomena. (Dr. Alexander was also a recipient of the Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship Award in 1997 when she was still a graduate student.)

2000
The first recipient of the Frances P. Bolton Fellowship for the year 2000 was Dr. Shari Cohn of the School of Scottish Studies of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland who planned to use the award to prepare articles for publication from her doctoral dissertation. Dr. Cohn’s doctoral research focused on the phenomena of “Second Sight” in the Scottish Highlands. (Dr. Cohn was also the first recipient of the Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship Award, presented in 1984.)