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| January 2025 |
SSE's January Babies are in Good Company
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asdfHappy New Year! And what a year 2025 will be with the launch of our quarterly Frontier Webinars. SSE’s annual conference (live or virtual) is always an engaging event, but now we aim to fill the entire year with our new program delivering leading-edge educational and entertaining content, all wrapped within a fun social vibe. Webinars—or virtual seminars—remain a powerhouse in today’s academic world, because they break down geographical barriers and transform cyberspaces into global hubs of knowledge. They offer students, educators, and seasoned investigators unparalleled access to expert insights, cutting-edge research, experiential learnings, and collaborative discussions—all from the comfort of their own screens. With
the rise of interactive tools and live Q&A sessions, webinars
create dynamic, engaging learning experiences that can rival in-person
presentations. Plus, recorded sessions ensure that no one misses out,
fostering a more inclusive and flexible approach to education. In an era
where information moves fast, webinars keep academia connected,
current, and constantly evolving. Also, four distinct formats will keep our Frontier Webinars diverse and fresh:
See the details below on the first Frontier Webinar set for March — it’s a social and educational event not to be missed.
In fact, the SSE Executive Committee and Council humbly suggest that
your New Year’s Resolution be a pledge to attend all four sessions
scheduled for 2025. Note that SSE members only pay half-price, whereas the general public is also welcome at a modest fee compared to most online educational events. Now is obviously the perfect time to join SSE as a Full, Associate, or Student Member (click here: https://scientificexploration.org/join-us). We are a unique organization devoted to scientific bridge-building among the varied subfields in frontier science and anomalistics. These sessions are therefore designed to be a great investment in your personal and professional development, so please take time to learn more and help us to spread the news. Let’s not limit making valuable connections, sharing critical insights, and pushing our own boundaries only to once a year at a conference. It’s time to unlock and activate SSE’s full social and academic potential… and everyone is invited to this party. |
Kudos to Mark and Jan Urban-Lurain and our Holiday Donors!We are indebted to SSE’s members and donors who make our programs possible, including our new Frontier Webinars. Last month SSE’s own Mark and Jan Urban-Lurain launched another matching funds campaign, so our deepest appreciation goes to them and the following donors who so generously answered their call to support SSE’s 2025 projects:Damon Abraham, Marsha Adams, Eric Berger, Larry Bowen, Ronald Bremer, Joseph Butenaerts, Marian Condon, Michael Hurt, Göran Johannesson, Mark Keller, Edwin Kellogg, Ivan Kruglak, Jon Mannsaker, Michael Mickley, Garret Moddel, Roger Nelson, Daqing Piao, Douglas Richards, Mark Rodeghier, Gregory Sandow, John Streiff, and Chantal Toporow. Remote Viewing Unlocked! A “Try It Yourself!” WorkshopSSE’s first “Encounters” Frontier Webinar happens Wednesday, March 19th, 2025 (2:00-4:30pm Pacific time). Register today for this exclusive virtual event with Dr. Debra Lynne Katz, President of the International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA).Why Attend? The only way to learn remote viewing and fully grasp how it can be used to describe the world around us, is to do it! Join us for an exploration into the potential and inner reaches of the human mind! Learn how remote viewing is both a scientific methodology and an intuitive-based discipline that can be helpful in daily practice. If you have ever wondered whether it is truly possible to tune into and even sketch a distant and undisclosed location, object, activity, person, or event—or if you are already a remote viewer but seeking additional tips and approaches—you won’t want to miss this fun, educational, and inspiring hands-on event. Event Details and Registration JSE’s 2024 Winter Issue Online NowHoliday parties can’t stop frontier science! Enjoy the latest issue with its varied array of topics:
Read the full issue: https://journalofscientificexploration.org/index.php/jse/issue/current |
 Meet SSE’s wonderful Treasurer and full member, Daching Piao.
Also known as Daegyong Park having (ethically) characteristically small
eyes, he was born into an ethnic Korean family in the countryside
situated at the northeastern mountainous area of present-day China. At
the age of 29, he was offered an opportunity to come to the USA to
pursue advanced degrees. After earning his M.S. and Ph.D. and completing
two years of post-doctoral training, he started his present academic
position in 2005. Daching became an SSE full member in 2020, thanks to
the enthusiastic introduction of Dr. Garret Moddel, SSE’s Publication
Chair and emeritus professor of Electrical and Energy Engineering.
Here’s a little about his story, before and after his involvement with
the SSE.
Please talk about your career journey and what led you to your current work
I received a B.S. in Physics with a specialization in Optics in 1990.
Afterward, my life brought me to work in the medical instrument sector
for nine years. With a graduate research assistantship in 1999, I came
to the United States to pursue my advanced degrees in Biomedical
Engineering with a research topic in biomedical optics. In 2005, I
started my independent academic career leading to my present position.
My academic research has had a few directions that have all involved
understanding and applying light-tissue interactions. My present
conventional research focuses on developing more robust applications of
non-contact diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, which is a technique
useful to analyzing some application-specific properties of materials
without physically touching them.
During my approximately 55 years of life up to now, I have experienced
the passings of grandparents, a parent, a grand-parent-in-law, and a
parent-in-law. There were phenomena of recognizable patterns occurring
around some of those passings that could not be explained by the
sciences that I have had the confidence of learning and applying. There
are other experiences of mine that seem to fall completely outside of
the domains of present-day sciences. Those experiences that were
previously neglected by me started to make louder and louder mental
noises after I had a medical emergency in 2017. By then, however, I
didn’t know the existence of the communities including SSE in the United
States. Unable to abate those “noises” through 2018, I did intensive
googling in data bases including IEEE Explore, as I have used to do
whenever I become interested in something that is tough to understand
but essential to “me”. I have since learned, surprisingly then, the
works of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab,
Stanford Research Institute (SRI), Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS),
etc. And, I was able to find and reach out to Dr. Hong He, the Chinese
equivalence of Dr. Edwin May, who helped me to eventually get connected
with SSE.
My conventional research has consistently dealt with understanding
experimental data originating in my own laboratory to direct
applications, and for that a good part of my conventional research has
been developing quantitative models that not only “fit” the experimental
data but also must “fit” with physical or first principles. In my
teaching of laser and optics labs to senior undergraduate students, I
have often said that “There is no good or bad data. There is only a data
that can be explained or not.” My pursuit of finding explanations of my
own experiences has laid out the journey to my current work and
engagement in this community.
What do you find most rewarding about your research in frontier science? National Public Radio (NPR) often says, “All music was once new.” I would like to borrow that quote and change it to the following: “All science was once frontier.” We are enjoying the extraordinary technological advances of “now.” However, we often seem to ignore that every scientific settlement giving birth to a new knowledge and technology of fundamentally changing the world was once non-existent. It was the continuous pursuit of the human spirit to understand what is yet to be understood that propels us to where we are now and where we will be. All science was once a humble settlement on the frontier. However, not every frontier can lead to a settlement that will grow to a town. At least clean water nearby must be found, even if it may be a small spring or a tiny stream, as I could appreciate from my earlier life living in the mountainous countryside. If you ask me “What is most rewarding about my frontier science research?”, I will say that the practicing of the rigor of model-developments benefits fundamentally my conventional research and directly my laboratory-centric teaching. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your career, and how have you overcome them? To apply a known basic physical principle to a new direction of application and to develop the quantitative model to support that new application may have been the two biggest challenges that I have faced in my career. The engineer’s motto of “If it doesn’t work, take it apart and put it back” could be a governing principle to overcome these challenges. However, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is.” In practice, the working principles may differ between the two aspects of the challenges. Finding a new direction of applying a known basic principle is almost always associated with interdisciplinary communication. Sometimes the next settlement in a jungle where the produce of this settlement can help is only a range-of-arrow away but blinded by the jungle. One must whistle to let the neighbor, who can whistle back, know there is someone here to help or vise versa. Developing a quantitative model to support a new application, as I have done with some successes, has always followed the simple principle: being able to safely get back to the home settlement, however humble it might be, after all extending conditions for exploring new areas of the jungle have been relaxed, or failed. How has being a part of SSE benefited you both professionally and personally? Professionally, it broadens my scientific view and sharpens my research methodologies. Personally, it helps me find like-minded friends who help me toughen my skin and enrich my spirit. What advice would you give to someone just starting out in frontier science? It is never too late starting out in frontier science. However, it is never too cautious in stepping out the foot. When walking at night under only the moonlight, as I remembered doing in returning home along the country road after watching a motion picture in the open field, the ground that shines can actually be a swamp that one wants to avoid. If you are determined to shift your own boundaries, make sure that you reinforce your base settlement, get your survival gears and horn your survival skills , then make the move. Know where the “exit” is, if not, make one first. |
“Why don’t extraterrestrials visit our Solar System? They read the reviews – just one star.” |
If you haven’t yet joined SSE as a Professional, Associate, or Student, Never miss a single issue of JSE: https://journalofscientificexploration.org/index.php/jse/issue/archive |