Robert A. McConnell (1914–2006) was an American physicist and parapsychologist. McConnell was born in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in 1914, and studied at

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

obtaining a B.S. in physics in 1935 and a Ph.D. from the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

in 1947. He worked as a physicist at a U.S. Naval aircraft factory and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Radiation Laboratory The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 3 ...

. He also worked in radar moving target indication,

iconoscope The iconoscope (from the Greek Language, Greek: ''εἰκών'' "image" and ''σκοπεῖν'' "to look, to see") was the first practical video camera tube to be used in early television cameras. The iconoscope produced a much stronger signal tha ...

, and ultrasonic microwaves. He earned a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree in

engineering physics Engineering physics (EP), sometimes engineering science, is the field of study combining pure science disciplines (such as physics, mathematics, chemistry or biology) and engineering disciplines (computer, nuclear, electrical, aerospace, medic ...

. McConnell was the first president of the

Parapsychological Association The Parapsychological Association (PA) was formed in 1957 as a professional society for parapsychologists following an initiative by Joseph Banks Rhine, Joseph B. Rhine. Its purpose has been "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate k ...

and a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

American Psychological Society The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...

. He was

Research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

Biological Sciences Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

at the

.Who was Robert A. McConnell? (1914 - 2006)

Selected works

*''Encounters with Parapsychology'' (1982, ) *''Parapsychology and Self-Deception in Science'' (1983, ) *''An Introduction to Parapsychology in the Context of Science'' (1983, ) *''Parapsychology in Retrospect'' (1987, ) *''Far Out in the New Age: The Subversion of Science by Cultural Communism'' (1995, ) *''Joyride To Infinity: A Scientific Study of the Doomsday Literature'' (2000, ) *''God.org Are You There?: On the Deeper Meaning of ESP'' (2001, ) *''Can We Win This War?: ISLAM'' (2002, )

References

External links

Robert A. McConnell
from the

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Home page of R. A. McConnell
1914 births 2006 deaths 20th-century American physicists American parapsychologists Radar pioneers University of Pittsburgh faculty Carnegie Mellon University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff {{physicist-stub