Biographies of Investigators

Biographies of some investigators currently involved with the studies:

 

Dr Mario Beauregard PhD - Neuroscientist

 

Mario Beauregard, PhD, is currently associate researcher at University of Montreal (Departments of Psychology and Radiology, Neuroscience Research Center). He is the author of more than 100 publications in neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry. Because of his research into the neuroscience of consciousness, he was selected by the World Media Net to be among the "One Hundred Pioneers of the 21st Century." Dr. Beauregard’s groundbreaking work on the neurobiology of emotion and mystical experience at the University of Montreal has received international media coverage. In 2006, he received the Joel F. Lubar award for his contribution to the field of neurotherapy. The National Film Board of Canada has recently produced a documentary film about his work titled The Mystical Brain. In September 2007, Dr. Beauregard published a new book titled The Spiritual Brain (Publisher: Harper Collins), in collaboration with science writer Denyse O’Leary.

 

 

Dr Peter Fenwick MD, FRCPsych - Consultant Neuropsychiatry & Neurophysiology

 

 

Professor Bruce Greyson MD - Professor of Psychiatry

 

Bruce Greyson, M.D., is the Chester F. Carlson Professor of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences and Director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia.  He was a founder and Past President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, and for the past 26 years has edited the Journal of Near-Death Studies.  Dr. Greyson graduated from Cornell University with a major in psychology in 1968, received his medical degree from the State University of New York Upstate Medical College in 1973, and completed his psychiatric residency at the University of Virginia in 1976.  He held faculty appointments in psychiatry at the University of Michigan (1978-1984) and the University of Connecticut (1984-1995), where he was Clinical Chief of Psychiatry, before returning to the University of Virginia, where he has practiced and taught psychiatry and carried out research since 1995.  His research for the past three decades has focused on near-death experiences and has resulted in more than 70 presentations to national scientific conferences, more than 100 publications in academic medical and psychological journals, 3 edited books, and several research grants and awards.

 

Professor Stephen Holgate MD, DSC, FRCP - Professor in Respiratory & Immunopharmacology Medicine

Stephen Holgate is Medical Research Council Professor of Immunopharmacology & Honorary Consultant Physician at Southampton University Hospital Trust. He completed his medical degree at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in 1971 and was awarded a prestigious Medical Research Council Clinical Research Chair in 1987, a position he has held since. He is a past Censor of the Royal College of Physicians of England and National Director for Clinical Trials in the National Health Service and Research & Development Director of the Wessex Regional health Authority and Associate Director of the South and West Regional Health Authority (1992-1995). He was a founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998 and has authored over 800 peer reviewed papers and scientific contributions to journals.

He has been a Board Member of the Physiological Medicine and Infections Board of the Medical Research Council, is currently a Cross Board Member dealing with Co-operative Group Grants, Deputy Chairman of the MRC Advisory Board (MAB: 2003) and was a member of SCOPE, the overarching strategy policy and evaluation committee that reports to Council. In 2007 he was made Chairman of the Physiological Systems and Clinical Sciences Board, member of the Interim Strategy Group (ISG). He is also Chairman of the MRC Subcommittee on Evaluation and member of the Clinical Research Oversight Group. He is a past member of the NHS Central Research and Development Committee, DH Advisory Committee on Drugs (ACD). He is currently (2006/7) President of the British Thoracic Society and Chairman of the UK Respiratory Research Collaborative. In July 2007 he was appointed to the Translational Medicine Board of OSCHR.

In 1994 he delivered the Jack Pepys Lecture at the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology and received a Scientific Achievement Award at the International Association of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (IAACI) and in 1995 was awarded the RPR Foundation World Health Award. He has been Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt, Harvard, Yale, UCSF and UCLA, Chicago, Rochester, Edmonton, Vancouver (BC), Wake Forest Universities and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US and Canada. In 1997 he co-presented at the King's Fund Centenary Lecture, introduced by HRH The Prince of Wales. In 1997 he was awarded an honorary medical degree from Ferrara University. In 1998 he gave the Brian Sproule Lectureship, University of Alberta. In 1999 he received an honorary PhD from the Jagellonian University, Krakow, Poland and in 2000 delivered the Royal College of Physicians Lumleian Lecture.

In 1999 he was jointly awarded the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, delivered the 2000 Robert Cook Memorial Award at the AAAAI meeting in San Diego and in 2001 was its Honorary Fellow. He gave the Sir William Osler Lecture at the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland in 2003 and was made an Honorary Member in 2004. In 2003 he received the Ellison-Cliffe Medal from the Royal Society of Medicine and in 2004 received the University of Ghent Health and Life Sciences Gold Medal was elect Honorary Fellow of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Research in Immunopharmacology and awarded the British Pharmacology Society's Quintiles Prize for Research in Immunopharmacology. He was elected to the American Association of Physicians in 2005 and Vice President of the British Lung Foundation.

 

 

 

Paula McLean, RN, Resuscitation Service Manager
St George’s Hospital NHS Trust, London.

 

Paula McLean qualified as an RN in Edinburgh 1989, specialising in critical care including cardiothoracic and neuro surgery.  Since 1997 she has been specialising in resuscitation, working as a resuscitation officer at the Hammersmith Hospital, Mayday Hospital and now St George’s Hospital since 2004. 

 

 

 

Dr Sam Parnia MD, PhD, MRCP - Fellow Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine

Dr Sam Parnia graduated from Guys and St. Thomas' medical schools in London in 1995 and obtained his PhD in cell biology from the University of Southampton in 2006. He is currently one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death, the state of the human mind, brain and near-death experiences. He now spends his time between UK hospitals and Cornell University in New York, where he is a Fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. He founded the Consciousness Research Group at the University of Southampton and is chairman of the Horizon Research Foundation.

Dr Parnia also currently leads a new and innovative scientific study, in collaboration with numerous medical centers throughout the UK that aims to finally discover through science what happens when we die. He has published numerous articles in peer reviewed scientific journals in the field of pulmonary medicine as well as near death experiences and is a current reviewer for The New England Journal of Medicine. He was a member of the Southampton University Trust Hospitals resuscitation committee between 1998 and 1999, where together with Dr Peter Fenwick he set up the first ever study of near death experiences in the UK. The results of this study have received widespread coverage in the national and international press and have been published in the medical journal "Resuscitation". He has been invited to present his work as some of the most prestigious scientific institutions including Harvard University, Caltech and UCLA. He recently authored the book What Happens When We Die and is consistently in demand as a speaker and consultant for the media, where he has made numerous appearances. His groundbreaking research has been featured on the BBC and Discovery documentary, The Day I Died.

 

Professor Robert Peveler - Professor of Liaison Psychiatry, University of Southampton

Professor Peveler trained in medicine and psychiatry in Oxford where he held posts as Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellow and Clinical Lecturer. He moved to Southampton in 1992 as Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, becoming Reader in 1996, and Professor in 1999. He became Head of the University Mental Health Clinical Group in 2000. His clinical work is focussed on general hospital liaison psychiatry, with particular interest in fatigue and pain. He conducts research on medically unexplained physical symptoms, depression in primary care, self-care in chronic disease and eating disorders. He is a member of the executive of the Faculty of Liaison Psychiatry in the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the General Medical Council Quality Assurance in Basic Medical Education Programme, and is a non-executive director of the Hampshire Partnership Mental Health Trust.

Dr Penny Sartori, RGN, PhD - Senior Intensive Care Nursing