Congratulations to Moritz Dechamps, who received the PA's Schmeidler Outstanding Student Award in 2021. This award goes to a student 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.

Dechamps is currently a Post-Doc at Markus Maier’s lab at LMU Munich. After completing his dissertation on mind-matter interactions and their replicability, he is continuing research with a strong emphasis on empirical parapsychology. One main focus revolves around apparent issues with a lack of stability regarding psi effects. To address the phenomenon of a “decline effect” he developed a methodological approach to discriminate real effects followed by a decline from false positives using Bayesian statistics and Monte-Carlo simulations (“change of evidence”).

A theoretical engagement with the topic takes place through an examination of subjective and objective aspects of reality and the means of interaction. This also regards to an empirical investigation of topics like free will and measurement with reduced objectivity. Other interests include consciousness, intuition, self-fulfilling prophecies, and effects of mindset and expectancy.

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