Notes on Contributors

Archive for the Psychology of Religion 31 (2009) 387-389 brill.nl/arp

Nina P. Azari earned a ﬁ rst Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, and more recently, a second Ph.D. in Religious & Th eological Studies (dissertation: philosophical-theological analysis of neuroscientiﬁ c study of religious experience). As an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Dr. Azari initiated a now long-standing collaboration with the University of Dusseldorf in Germany. She currently is Editor-In-Chief of a forthcoming Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions (publisher: Springer). At present she is teaching in the Ridgeview Classical Schools, Fort Collins, Colorado. Her e-mail address is: [email protected].

Leslie J. Francis is Professor of Religions and Education in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, University of Warwick, UK. His current research interests include the personality and work-related psychological health of the clergy. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Thilo Hinterberger (Ph.D., PD) has studied physics at the University of Ulm, Germany. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Tübingen in 1999 in the fi eld of medical psychology. His major research focussed on the development of brain-computer interfaces for direct brain communication and psychophysiological research. He has completed his Habilitation (venia legendi) in Tübingen in the fi eld of neuro-computer science and behav- ioural neurobiology in 2007. From 2006 to 2008 he worked at the University of North- ampton in the fi eld of consciousness research. Currently, he is with the University Medical Center Freiburg/Germany continuing his work on the monitoring of higher states of consciousness.

Niko Kohls, Ph.D. has worked as a consultant for the insurance industry, for medical consulting and other businesses, before returning to academia doing his Ph.D. in clinical psychology (2004) as a scholar of the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Freiburg, Germany. As part of his diploma and Ph.D. work he has devised and validated the Exceptional Experiences Questionnaire (EEQ) as well as investigated its relationship with health and distress. In 2004 he took up a position as postdoc research fellow at the University of Northampton in Prof. Walach’s group, where he has continued research- ing the relationship between spirituality and health. As of 2008 he is a Samueli-Rockefeller fellow at the Generation Research Program of the Human Science Centre at the Ludwig- Maximilians University Munich, where he has started his own research group. Th e research program is focussed on those aspects of spirituality which are of particular relevance to the health sciences. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Christopher Alan Lewis is Professor of Psychology at Glyndŵr University, Wales, UK. His current research interests include mental health and religion.

George Lewith is a qualifi ed physician who has practiced and worked as a researcher within Complementary and Alternative medicine (CAM) for the last 30 years. He now works at the University of Southampton where he leads an internationally respected CAM and Integrated Medicine Research Unit within the primary medical department. It is focused on diff erentiating the specifi c from the non-specifi c eff ects of CAM, and develop- ing models that will help to explain the patient perceived benefi ts of these interventions. It is currently interested in pain, Arthritis and Cancer as illness models investigating the eff ects of acupuncture, healing, homeopathy and herbal medicines.

François Mathijsen has studied theology, philosophy and has a MA in commercial studies. He also holds a Diploma of Advanced studies in psychology-education (specialization in psychology of religion). He is currently a Ph.D. student in psychology at the UCL (Université catholique de Louvain) studying adolescents’ interest in paranormal beliefs. His e-mail is: [email protected].

Mandy Robbins is a Senior Research Fellow in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, University of Warwick, UK. Her current research interests include the personality and work-related experiences of clergywomen. Her e-mail is: mandy.robbins@ warwick.ac.uk.

Stefan Schmidt, a trained psychologist, received his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg, Germany in 2002 with a thesis on distant intentionality experiments. He is the head of the Academic Section for the Evaluation of Complementary Medicine at the University Medi- cal Center Freiburg and is also leading the Center for Mindfulness, Meditation and Neuro- science Research at the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. He is conducting research on the interface of health, spirituality and consciousness with a large set of diﬀ er- ent methods. Primary research areas are mindfulness and health, meditation research, complementary and alternative medicine and psychological interventions. Methodological approaches include a neurophysiologic laboratory for EEG research, peripheral psycho- physiology including an expertise in ambulatory assessment, randomized controlled clinical trials, questionnaire construction and qualitative approaches.

Nikolaus von Stillfried, MSc, studied biological sciences, neuroscience, phamacology, psychology and ecology at the University of Munich, Gemany and the University of Cam- bridge, UK. Since 2003 he has been conducting experimental and theoretical research at the University of Freiburg, Germany. His work focuses primarily on a systems-theoretical interpretation of quantum mechanics and the potential application of such a framework to macroscopic phenomena, e.g., in the ﬁ eld of parapsychology and consciousness research. He is engaged in the dialogue between science and spirituality.