In 1973, Susan Blackmore graduated from St. Hilda's College, University of Oxford, with a BA (Hons) in psychology and physiology. She went on to do a postgraduate degree in environmental psychology at the University of Surrey, achieving an MSc in 1974. In 1980, she got her PhD in parapsychology from the same university, her thesis being entitled "Extrasensory Perception as a Cognitive Process".
She has done research on memes (which she wrote about in her popular book The Meme Machine), evolutionary theory, consciousness, and the paranormal.
She has also appeared on television a number of times, discussing such paranormal phenomena as ghosts, ESP, and out-of-body experiences, in what she describes as the "unenviable role" of "Rentaskeptic", and she has also presented a show on alien abductions. Another programme which she has presented discusses the intelligence of apes. She also acted as one of the psychologists who featured on the British version of the television show "Big Brother", speaking about the psychological state of the contestants.
She has been on the editorial board for the Journal of Memetics (an electronic journal) since 1997, and has been a consulting editor of the Skeptical Inquirer since 1998.
In 1977, she married fellow academic Prof. Tom Troscianko, and they had two children: Emily Tamarisk Troscianko (born February 20, 1982), and Jolyon Tomasz Troscianko (born May 17, 1984).
She is now the partner of Dr. Adam Hart-Davis.Career
Family