The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) is pleased to announce the election of fourteen new fellows to the Committee, chosen for their outstanding contributions to science and skepticism.

This year’s electees are from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Argentina, Germany, and Australia, as well as the United States. Their fields include physics, psychology, biology, and medicine. Other fellows are investigators, writers, editors, and educators. There is even a skeptic mentalist.

Nomination and election as a CSI fellow are based upon the following criteria, established by CSI’s Executive Council:

1. The person has made an outstanding contribution to a scientific discipline, preferably, though not restricted to, a field related to the skeptical movement;
2. The person has made an outstanding contribution to the communication of science and/or critical thinking; or
3. The person has made an outstanding contribution to the skeptical movement.

The mission of CSI, a program of the Center for Inquiry (CFI), is to promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. CSI and CFI together publish the Skeptical Inquirer. Fellows of CSI serve as ambassadors of science and skepticism and may be consulted on issues related to their area of expertise by the media or by CSI. They may be asked to support statements issued by CSI and contribute commentary or articles to CSI outlets.

Founding members of CSI include noted scientists, academics, and science communicators such as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Philip J. Klass, Paul Kurtz, Ray Hyman, James Randi, Martin Gardner, Sidney Hook, and others. Current fellows include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Elizabeth Loftus, Michael E. Mann, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eugenie Scott, Jill Tarter, and E.O. Wilson. A full list of CSI fellows is published in every issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and is on SI’s website, skepticalinquirer.org.

Election as a fellow is a lifetime appointment. However, if in the opinion of the CSI Executive Council an individual’s behavior or scholarship renders that person unable to continue to qualify for the position of fellow under the criteria above—or unable to effectively fulfill the role of ambassador of science and skepticism—CSI may choose to remove them from the list of fellows.

Here are the new fellows:

Alejandro Borgo, journalist and writer, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Borgo is an active journalist and writer and the director of the Center for Inquiry Argentina. He is also editor of Pensar, CFI’s newly reinstituted online Spanish-language magazine for science and reason. He has written three books about pseudoscience and critical thinking and has spoken at several international skeptic congresses and conferences. One of the founders of the Argentine Center for Research and Refutation of Pseudoscience (CAIRP), Borgo has carried out investigations into claims of parapsychology, astrology, UFOs, and other alleged phenomena. He also organized the First Ibero American Conference on Critical Thinking in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2005).

Glenn Branch, deputy director, National Center for Science Education (NCSE). At NCSE, Branch monitors and helps coordinate resistance to efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution and climate change in formal and informal science education. He also manages NCSE’s survey research program. He is the author of numerous articles on evolution education and climate change education, the coeditor of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools, and a frequent writer for Skeptical Inquirer. He received the Evolution Education Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers in 2020.

Taner Edis, professor of physics, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri. Edis is a Turkish-American physicist and skeptic. He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University for research in theoretical condensed-matter physics. His research in skepticism focuses on paranormal and supernatural claims and what their failures say about the nature of science. He has also written extensively on Islamic creationism. His books include Islam Evolving, An Illusion of Harmony, Science and Nonbelief, Why Intelligent Design Fails (coedited with Matt Young), The Ghost in the Universe, and most recently (November 2021) Weirdness! What Fake Science and the Paranormal Tell Us about the Nature of Science.

 Mark Edward, mentalist, skeptic, author, Salinas, California. Edward is an American mentalist and was a resident magician at the Magic Castle for twenty-five years. Edward says he has always been a skeptic because he is a magician. In the 1970s, he researched the methods of Uri Geller and later decided to blow the whistle on the Psychic Friends Network, then a $2 billion a year industry. Edward has been outspoken about exposing celebrity psychics and their techniques. On Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, he demonstrated how TV psychics John Edward (no relation) and James Van Praagh persuaded people they were communicating with their dead relatives. He is author of Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium.

Craig A. Foster, writer and professor of psychology at SUNY Cortland. Foster is interested in the development of scientifically unrealistic beliefs—pseudoscience—and has conducted research and written prolifically in that area. Topics include anti-vaccination, flat-earth belief, facilitated communication, and others. He received his doctorate in social psychology at the University of North Carolina and then joined the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he continued researching and writing in several areas, including pseudoscience and scientific skepticism. His Skeptical Inquirer essays include “Respectful Skepticism” and “Skepticism, at Heart, Is Not Partisan,” other commentaries and reviews, and an investigation into claims that wearing titanium-treated necklaces improves emotional well-being. He is currently the chair of the Psychology Department at SUNY Cortland.

Natalie Grams-Nobmann, medical doctor, Heidelberg, Germany. Grams-Nobmann is a medical doctor who worked in her own practice as a professional homeopath. In researching a book on homeopathy, she recognized she had been mistaken about it and realized it was a false ideology. The book she was writing (Homeopathy Reconsidered) became not a defense but a critical analysis. She abandoned her homeopathic private practice. She engaged with the skeptical community in Germany and now considers herself a “skeptic by profession.” In 2016, she cofounded the “Information Network Homeopathy” and was communications manager of the German skeptics group GWUP. She now works in public health and continues to write articles and columns to educate people about homeopathy’s failings.

David Robert Grimes, physicist, cancer researcher, broadcaster, author, Dublin, Ireland. Born in Dublin, Grimes did his doctoral research in UV radiation physics at Dublin City University and his postdoctoral research on medical physics and oncology. He has a keen interest in the public understanding of science. He writes on science and society for outlets including The Guardian, Irish Times, the BBC, the Spectator, and the Sunday Business Post. He appears frequently in the news media on topics from the anti-vaccination movement and bogus cancer cures to climate change and conspiracy theories. He was joint recipient of the 2014 Nature/Sense about Science John Maddox Prize for standing up for science. His book The Irrational Ape has now been published in the United States as Good Thinking: Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World (excerpted in the January/February 2022 Skeptical Inquirer).

Raymond E. Hall, professor of physics, California State University, Fresno. Hall’s research focus involved a 700-member particle physics experiment at Fermilab from 1989–2010, a highlight of which included the discovery of the top quark, a fundamental particle of nature. His current research centers on understanding best practices for teaching the methods of science and the tools of critical thinking. His work at Fresno State includes teaching courses in engineering physics, quantum mechanics, critical thinking, and the philosophy of science. Hall is the organizer of the Sunday Papers session at CSICon conferences and before that was conference organizer and a director of programming for James Randi’s The Amazing Meeting (TAM) conferences.

Michael Heap, clinical and forensic psychologist and lecturer (ret.), Sheffield, U.K. Heap has a PhD in psychology and has worked as a research psychologist, university lecturer, and clinical and forensic psychologist. One of his research topics was hypnosis, where he clarified misinformation promoted by the media. In 1974, Heap and colleagues established in the U.K. the Association for Skeptical Enquiry (“casting a critical eye over suspect science, dubious claims, and bizarre beliefs”), and he continues as its main organizer as well as editor of its quarterly magazine The Skeptical Intelligencer. He is also one of the organizers of Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub and now undertakes voluntary work as a humanist advisor and teacher.

Nathan H. Lents, professor of biology, City University of New York. Lents is professor of biology at John Jay College, City University of New York, and currently director of its Cell and Molecular Biology Program. He is noted for his work in cell biology and genetics and for his popular science writing and blogging on the evolution of human biology and behavior. He is the author of Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals and Human Errors (a highly readable discussion of human imperfections that are the result of evolutionary compromises). He has appeared as a scientific expert in a range of national media, including The Today Show, NPR, 48 hours, Univisión, and Access Hollywood.

Leighann Lord, standup comedian, author, host. A former host of the Emmy-nominated StarTalk podcast with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lord has shared her comedic and hosting talents at many skeptic and atheist conferences, including CSICon, NECSS, DragonCon’s Science and Skeptical tracks, Skepticon, and most recently our own biweekly webinar talks Skeptical Inquirer Presents. She has been seen on Lifetime, VH1, Comedy Central, Netflix, DryBar Comedy, HBO, and Showtime. She was the New York City face of the African Americans for Humanism campaign of the Center for Inquiry. She is author of Real Women Do It Standing Up: Stories from the Career of a Very Funny Lady and recipient of the 2019 Humanist Arts Award.

Michael Marshall, investigator, activist, podcaster, and editor, Liverpool, U.K. Michael “Marsh” Marshall is a British skeptical activist, freelance journalist, public speaker, podcaster, author, blogger, and, since September 2020, the editor of The Skeptic magazine (U.K.) He is the cofounder and president of the Merseyside Skeptics Society and cohost of its official podcast, Skeptics with a K; project director of the Good Thinking Society (where the major focus has been on ending British government funding of homeopathy); and has occasionally written for The Times, The Guardian, and New Statesman. He has carried out several notable activist campaigns, challenging psychics and engaging with believers to understand their thinking.

Tim Mendham, executive officer and editor of The Skeptic, Australian Skeptics, Sydney, Australia. Mendham not only heads day-to-day operations of the Australian Skeptics, but he also edits its fine quarterly magazine The Skeptic and writes much of each issue. He has recently written on such varied topics as Erich von Däniken (an icon of pseudoscience), a university’s promotion of pseudoscience, James Randi’s exploits in Australia, the false theory of gay conversion therapy, cryptozoology publications and websites, and the sovereign citizen movement. He has written about websites that promote a skeptical view of the world in general. He has also revisited classic books, ranging from Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds to Joe Nickell’s Inquest on the Shroud of Turin.

Leonard Tramiel, physicist, science communicator, Palo Alto, California. Tramiel is a physicist with a passion for science and astronomy and a dedication to public understanding of science and skepticism. He is a board member of the Center for Inquiry and a member of the Executive Council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. After getting his PhD in physics from Columbia University and working in the Columbia Astrophysics Lab, he joined his father at Atari as vice president of software, helping develop Atari’s products. He is active in skeptical and atheist causes and also serves on the Council of Advisors for the SETI Institute. He has worked with the California Department of Education to improve the quality of science textbooks and, since 2000, has been a regular volunteer at the Chabot Space and Science Center.