Jim B. Tucker

Jim B. Tucker is an American child psychiatrist best known for his research into children who claim to remember previous lives. Born in 1960, he worked at the University of Virginia, where he carried on, in a field rarely studied by mainstream science, the empirical work begun by Ian Stevenson.

He studied psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then went on to medicine. He became an associate professor of psychiatry and medical director of the university's child and family psychiatry clinic. After Stevenson retired in 2002, Tucker took over the research. Where Stevenson had focused largely on cases from Asia, Tucker studied American children. To assess cases he devised the Strength Of Case Scale, which rates birthmarks, statements, behaviours and the plausibility of a link to the claimed earlier life.

Tucker describes himself as sceptical about reincarnation, yet he regards it as the best available explanation for the strongest cases. He has suggested that quantum mechanics might offer a mechanism by which memories could carry over between lives, an idea physicists have rejected. His book Life Before Life summarises over four decades of research. His influence is felt mainly in public discussion of these cases, although most of the scientific community does not accept his conclusions.