Ian Stevenson

Canadian-American psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who spent 40 years investigating children who claimed to remember previous lives — documenting over 3,000 cases and identifying over 40 where birthmarks corresponded to wounds on the previous personality — whose work remains the most systematic scientific investigation of reincarnation.

Established the evidentiary standard for reincarnation research — documenting cases where children gave accurate details about deceased persons' lives, homes, and family members they could not have known normally, along with physical evidence (birthmarks matching wounds) — making the reincarnation hypothesis scientifically respectable.