Congratulations to Dr. Sonali Bhatt Marwaha, who has been selected to receive the PA’s 2022 Outstanding Contribution Award. This award goes to a PA member who has made an outstanding research (experimental, theoretical, scholarly) or service contribution that has advanced the discipline of parapsychology.

Dr. Marwaha focuses on understanding the theoretical mechanisms of psi and her numerous projects reflect that interest. She is the primary author of the “Multiphasic Model of Informational Psi” and other papers aimed at understanding the process and nature of informational psi and cross-cultural perspectives on informational psi.

Dr. Marwaha co-edited with Dr. Edwin C. May the two-volume Extrasensory Perception: Support, Skepticism, and Science (2015), covering history, controversy, research as well as theories of psi. They also compiled the four-volume The Star Gate Archives: Reports of the United States Government Sponsored Psi Program, 1972-1995 (volumes published between 2018 and 2019). These volumes present the entire database from the United States government sponsored psi research program investigating remote viewing, operational/applied RV, psychokinesis, and internal memorandums of the program. Presently she is collaborating with Dr. Nancy Zingrone on the Carlos Alvarado Archives.

Dr. Marwaha, holds a BSc with a major in child development from University of Mumbai, an MA in Clinical Psychology and MPhil in Psychology from S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Mumbai. In 2003, she was awarded a Ph.D. by the Dept. of Psychology and Parapsychology, Andhra University, for a theoretical analysis of “Belief Systems, Self, and Emotions: Indian Perspectives,” which was awarded the K. Ramakrishna Rao Endowment J. B. Rhine Biennial Research Award. She worked with Prof. K. Ramakrishna Rao for eight years, an experience that introduced her to parapsychology as a formal discipline from the perspective of Indian psychology.

Dr. Marwaha is based in India, and currently a researcher at the Laboratories for Fundamental Research in Palo Alto California.

For more information about the PA's annual career awards, please visit: http://www.parapsych.org/section/27/awards.aspx