The winner of this year's Schmeidler Outstanding Student Award is Dr. Erika A. Pratte. This annual award goes to a student or recent graduate who excels academically and makes early contributions to the field through conference presentations, research, or involvement in one or more of the organizations of the field and/or who has overcome practical difficulties to study parapsychology.

Erika is well known to many members of the PA in her role as exceptional experiences responder for the PA, and for her participation in PA conventions, both on the platform and behind the scenes. A member of the PA for ten years, Erika progressed through the ranks of PA membership from student member to professional member just recently, and now she has been elected to the PA Board.

She is deeply committed to the field of parapsychology, illustrated most obviously by her willingness to relocate to a different continent to secure a doctoral qualification. In 2017, she left the USA to study for a Ph.D. at the University of Northampton, exploring the well-being impacts and clinical implications of near-death experiences. Erika has proven to be conscientious and hardworking, and colleagues have been particularly impressed by the subtle and empathic approach she adopted in her qualitative work. Her thesis reflects her commitment as a qualified therapist to help support people who have challenging personal experiences that they find difficult to make sense of and integrate, to which end she has been very active in the burgeoning sub-discipline of clinical parapsychology and participated in expert meetings with colleagues on the continent.

Erika recently launched a private psychotherapy practice, Holistic Head Health, and will soon launch its subsidiary, Anomalies Research, Counselling, & Consultation (ARCC). She is also a psychotherapist at the London School of Economics (LSE).

More information about the PA's annual awards can be found at: http://www.parapsych.org/section/27/awards.aspx.