James Underdown

James "Jim" Underdown (born October 9, 1960) has been the executive director of The Center for Inquiry (CFI) West in Los Angeles since 1999. The Center for Inquiry is a non-profit educational organization with headquarters in Amherst, New York, whose primary mission is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. CFI West is the largest facility in the organization outside Amherst.Underdown founded the Center for Inquiry Investigations Group (formerly the Independent Investigations Group), a volunteer-based organization, in January 2000 at the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles, California. The Center for Inquiry Investigations Group (CFIIG), investigates fringe science, paranormal and extraordinary claims from a rational, scientific viewpoint, and disseminates factual information about such inquiries to the public. The original Center for Inquiry Investigation Group is located in Los Angeles, and has a sister group, the CFIIG San Francisco Bay area. The CFIIG maintains field investigators in Washington D.C., Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, Edinburgh, Scotland, London, England, Milan, Italy, Cape Town, South Africa, Lagos, Nigeria, and Alberta, Canada. Altogether, the CFI Investigations Groups are the largest paranormal investigations team in the world. The CFIIG offers $250,000: 43:15  to anyone who can prove paranormal or supernatural ability under test conditions, and has in the past administered preliminary demonstrations for the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge.James was made a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in 2020.Underdown is a 1982 graduate of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where he received his B.A. in English with an emphasis in composition. He was also the starting defensive end for the DePauw Tiger football team which recorded a 9–1 record in 1981. That team was ranked 9th in the final 1981 Division III football poll, and was inducted into the DePauw University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016. Between 1982 and 1999, he worked as a school teacher, truck driver, painter, limo driver, hotel clerk, furniture mover, football coach, carpenter, and bouncer. In the late 1970s, Underdown tried to win a $500 prize by wrestling a bear .