James Underdown

James Underdown has been the executive director of The Center for Inquiry Los Angeles since 1999. The Center for Inquiry is a non-profit educational organization with headquarters in Amherst, NY, whose primary mission is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. CFI Los Angeles is the largest branch in the organization outside Amherst. Underdown founded the Independent Investigations Group IIG, a volunteer-based organization, in January 2000 at the Center for Inquiry-West in Hollywood, California. The IIG investigates fringe science, paranormal and extraordinary claims from a rational, scientific viewpoint, and disseminates factual information about such inquiries to the public. There are Independent Investigation Groups in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Denver, and Alberta, Canada. Altogether, the Independent Investigations Groups are the largest paranormal investigations team in the world.