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Professional Biography


William Braud, Ph.D. prefers to think of himself as a writer, educator, researcher, and scholar. He began his academic work in physics, at Loyola University in New Orleans, but switched to psychology, earning his B.A. in psychology in 1964 from the University of New Orleans. He earned his M.A. in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1967, both in experimental psychology,at the University of Iowa. From 1967 to 1975, he taught undergraduate and graduate psychology courses at the University of Houston and conducted original research in areas of learning, memory, motivation, psychophysiology, and the biochemistry of memory. After 8 years, he left his tenured Associate Professorship to join a private research organization, Mind Science Foundation (San Antonio, TX). In his 17 years there, he directed research in parapsychology; health and well-being influences of relaxation, imagery, positive emotions, and intention; and the then-new field of psychoneuroimmunology.

In 1992, he joined the Residential Core Faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (Palo Alto, CA), serving as a professor, research director, dissertation director, and co-director of ITP's William James Center for Consciousness Studies. In 2002, when ITP initiated its distant learning Global Ph.D. Program, he moved to its Global Core Faculty. In 2009, Dr. Braud retired from his position at ITP, and was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus.

During his 17 years at ITP, Professor Braud taught research-related graduate psychology courses, supervised dissertations, and conducted quantitative and qualitative research studies in areas of exceptional human experiences (mystical, intuitive, peak, transformative) and their interpretations, meanings, and life impacts; personal and spiritual change and transformation; alternative ways of knowing; the development and promotion of more inclusive and integrated inquiry approaches for transpersonal studies and science in general; and examining some of the underlying assumptions of science, psychology, transpersonal psychology, and certain spiritual and wisdom traditions.

Professor Braud has published over 250 articles in professional psychology journals and numerous book chapters. He coauthored, with Rosemarie Anderson, Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences: Honoring Human Experience (Sage Publications, 1998) and Transforming Self and Others Through Research: Transpersonal Research Methods and Skills for the Human Sciences and Humanities (State University of New York Press, 2011) and authored Distant Mental Influence: Its Contributions to Science, Healing, and Human Interactions (Hampton Roads, 2003). He serves on Editorial Boards of several professional journals and is the recipient of fellowships, travel awards, federal grants, honors and awards, including a university-wide Teaching Excellence Award (University of Houston), Award for Outstanding Contribution (Parapsychological Association), and President's Award for Outstanding Service (Institute of Transpersonal Psychology).

Contact Information

William Braud may be contacted at the following e-mail addresses:

william@inclusivepsychology.com
wbraud@itp.edu
Research Background

William Braud, Ph.D. has a variegated research methods background. He absorbed natural science methods and viewpoints in undergraduate physics studies. In his doctoral work in experimental psychology at the University of Iowa, he was trained in the behavioral and hypothetico-deductive approaches of the Hull/Spence learning theory and motivation tradition, and he studied philosophy of science, epistemology, and ontology with Gustav Bergmann, a member of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists. Later, through university and medical center appointments in Houston, TX, he supplemented behavioral approaches to learning, memory, and motivation with clinical, psychophysiological, and pharmacological methods. At a private research laboratory (Mind Science Foundation, San Antonio, TX), he developed new research methods for exploring topics in areas of biofeedback, physiological self-regulation, altered states of consciousness, and parapsychology; and with collaborators at several health science centers, he conducted studies in the then-new field of psychoneuroimmunology. During his tenure at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (Palo Alto, CA), Professor Braud expanded his research expertise to include not only established quantitative methods, but also more newly developed qualitative methods, mixed methods, and transpersonal inquiry approaches.

To access William Braud's Curriculum Vitae, click here.