SkeptiCamp 2026

Amy Sue Bix

Free Energy, Manufactured Hurricanes, and 9/11 Jet Fuel: Why Skeptics Should Care About Pseudo-Engineering 

 

Bio: Professor of History at Iowa State University. Her 2013 book ‘Girls Coming to Tech!’: A History of American Engineering Education for Women (MIT Press) has won three major awards, including the 2015 Margaret Rossiter Prize from the History of Science Society. Bix has written widely on many topics in the history of science, technology, and medicine, including her book Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs?: America's Debate over Technological Unemployment, 1929-1981. Her book in progress is Recruiting Engineer Jane and Astrophysicist Amy: American STEM Advocacy for Girls, 1965-2015.

 

(read more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Bix)​

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Taner Edis

 

Beyond Checklists: Distinguishing between Real and Fake Science.

 

Bio: Taner Edis was born in Istanbul, 1967, to Turkish and American parents. After completing his undergraduate work at Boğaziçi University, he received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in 1994, in theoretical physics. Currently professor of physics at Truman State University, his present research interests focus on the philosophy and history of science.

 

 

(read more https://edis.sites.truman.edu/short-biography/)​​​

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Susan Gerbic

Emcee for SkeptiCamp

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Susan will also be updating the group on her latest psychic mediums stings, Operation Banana Cream Pie and Operation Gobble Gotcha

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​American studio photographer who became known as a scientific skepticism activist, mostly for exposing people claiming to be mediums. A columnist for Skeptical Inquirer, she is the founder of Monterey County Skeptics and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Gerbic has received multiple awards for her activism including the CFI Balles Award for Critical Thinking, the James Randi Educational Foundation award, and others. ​

In 2010 Gerbic founded Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) a team that works to write, correct and maintain Wikipedia articles concerning science and pseudoscience, in all languages. GSoW has created over 2,000 articles which have over 200 million articles views. ​​​​​​​​​​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Gerbic

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Kyle Polich

His talk will be - Risk: Why You're Afraid of the Wrong Things

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Kyle Polich is the host of the Data Skeptic, a podcast about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science which explores these topics from a skeptical perspective.

He has presented talks in several well known skeptical forums including his SkeptiCal 2018 talk Skepticism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.  His work investigating the Missing411 conspiracy theory has appeared in Skeptical Inquirer.

Professionally, Kyle runs a small consulting group that helps small and medium-size organizations utilize machine learning, streaming data, and cloud computing.

​​​​​​​​​​​​Data Science website https://dataskeptic.com/

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Adrienne Hill

Spirit Photography and Pareidolia

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Annoyingly Dumb Health Demonstrations on social media. 

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is a retired high school mathematics teacher turned active participant in the skeptic community. Since 2019, she has been an editor for Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) and serves as a board member for Susan Gerbic’s non-profit, About Time Projects. Adrienne regularly reports for The Skeptic Zone Podcast and has appeared on Skeptoid, Squaring the Strange, and The Thinking Atheist Podcasts. She has worked as a researcher and has appeared in videos on Coleman Watt’s Think This Through YouTube Channel. She has contributed articles to The Skeptic (Australia), Skeptical Inquirer, and AIPT Comics.

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https://www.zonegiggler.ca/​​​​​

Milos Radakovich

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MARS: history, exploration, maybe colonization, and the possibility of life. Humanity has had a fascination with the red planet for thousands of years. It is the only planet solely populated by robots, and we are the first generation in the history of the solar system to possibly visit our rusty cosmic neighbor.

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Science Educator & Coastal Biologist for more than 50 yrs. On-board Naturalist for Celebrity Cruises Widely recognized for his work in education and conservation, Milos has received the MBNMS Educator of the Year award (1998), the AMBAG Citizen Award (1996), and the Environmental Hero award (2001), presented by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

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https://www.expeditions.com/about/expedition-team/milos-radakovich​​​​

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Mano Singham

The Death of Free Will: The theoretical arguments and experimental evidence against it
 

Mano Singham obtained his B.Sc. in physics (First Class Honors) from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He worked at the University of Colombo, University of Rochester,  Los Alamos National Laboratory, and at Case Western Reserve University. His research interests have been in intermediate energy physics, education, theories of knowledge, and the history and philosophy of science. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

His latest book THE GREAT PARADOX OF SCIENCE: Why its conclusions can be relied upon even though they cannot be proven was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. His other books are GOD VS. DARWIN: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom (2009) (that deals with how challenges to the teaching of evolution in schools have themselves evolved as a result of repeated setbacks in the courts), THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP IN U. S. EDUCATION: Canaries in the Mine (2005) (that deals with the educational achievement gap between white and black students), and THE QUEST FOR TRUTH: Scientific Progress and Religious Beliefs (2000). Since 2005, he has maintained a blog that deals with a variety of topics including science, politics, and religion.

 

 

It can be read at https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/

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Leonard Tramiel

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His talk: Interesting and surprising facts about Astronomy.​​

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Tramiel received his bachelor of science degree in physics from Santa Clara University in 1976 and earned his master of arts, master of philosophy, and doctorate of philosophy degrees—all in physics—from Columbia University. He worked in the Columbia Astrophysics Lab under advisor Professor Gary Chanan, now at the University of California at Irvine.

Fresh out of graduate school, Tramiel joined his father and two brothers when his father bought Atari from Warner Communications in 1984. For the next 12 years, Tramiel was involved in the development of Atari’s products as vice president of software, managing an internal group of a dozen programmers while interacting worldwide with software developers and contract programmers.

Since retiring from Atari at age 42, he has been concentrating on advocating science education (See Forbes magazine, Oct. 30, 2000, for his work to improve the quality of science textbooks with the California Department of Education). Tramiel has also been a volunteer eighth-grade astronomy teacher for the past 10 years and has been volunteering at the Chabot Space and Science Center since 2000.

“I think that CFI’s mission of fostering a society based on reason and values is wonderful, in fact vital, for the future of humanity,” Tramiel said.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​