Summary

Sociocultural anthropologist and philosopher who co-founded the Sol Foundation in October 2023 alongside Dr. Garry Nolan, Karl Nell, and David Grusch — the Stanford-affiliated academic research organization established to apply rigorous scientific and humanities frameworks to UAP research following the 2023 congressional disclosure season. Skafish brings rare disciplinary breadth to the UAP academic field, integrating anthropological methodology, philosophy of mind, and comparative religion into the analysis of UAP witness testimony and the broader ontological implications of contact with non-human intelligence. He has publicly stated that he has personal connections one degree removed from individuals with direct legacy program exposure, and has argued that UAP represent physically real technological objects whose noetic and philosophical dimensions demand serious academic engagement.

Roles

• -Sociocultural Anthropologist and Philosopher
• -Co-Founder, Sol Foundation (2023-present)
• -Research Associate, Archives of the Impossible, Rice University

Organizations

Education

• -Ph.D., Sociocultural Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
• -Research affiliations: College de France, McGill University, University of Weimar, Harvard Center for World Religions

Early Career

• -Trained as a sociocultural anthropologist with a focus on ontology, philosophy of mind, and non-Western cosmologies — intellectual foundations that positioned him unusually well for rigorous analysis of UAP witness testimony and contact phenomenology
• -Developed academic interests at the intersection of anthropology, comparative religion, and philosophy — an approach that later found institutional expression through his affiliation with Jeffrey Kripal's Archives of the Impossible project at Rice University
• -Built connections across the UAP research community through shared intellectual interests with researchers including Dr. Garry Nolan, Dr. Diana Pasulka, and Dr. Jacques Vallee, all of whom integrate humanities frameworks into UAP research
• -Prior to founding the Sol Foundation, participated in the broader network of academic researchers and scientists beginning to engage UAP as a legitimate research domain in the post-2017 disclosure era