Marc Seifer: Prolific author, educator, researcher and handwriting expert

You wouldn’t exactly call Marc Seifer’s career path typical. A Rhode Island resident for nearly 50 years, Seifer has spent his adult life working as a handwriting analyst at the University of Rhode Island’s Crime Laboratory, a lecturer and expert on renowned inventor Nikola Tesla, and an educator and an author on a range of topics, including parapsychology.

The author of more than 60 works, including non-fiction, fiction and many research-based articles, Seifer’s most recent book series, the “Rudy Styne Quadrilogy,” is four books that fictionalize real events, from Seifer’s personal experience in parapsychology as well as from his extensive research on the Holocaust.

“Thirty to 35 years of my writing went into the creation of this series,” he said.

The books all follow “Rudy Styne,” an ace reporter who attempts to uncover the truth behind each of the novel’s mysteries. The four books that make up the series, in order of their release, are, “Rasputin’s Nephew,” “Doppelganger,” “Crystal Night” and “Fate Line.” All four books are available at Amazon.com. 

Seifer has given countless lectures around the globe over the last several decades about the life and work of Tesla, the namesake of Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors. Seifer began studying Tesla as a doctoral candidate, and wrote his dissertation on Tesla’s life and work. That ultimately led to Seifer authoring “Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla.”  

As an expert on Tesla, and as a handwriting expert, Seifer has lectured at such prestigious venues as the United Nations, Brandeis University and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Seifer grew up on Long Island, in New York, and arrived in Rhode Island in 1966 as a freshman at URI, where he majored in finance with a minor in psychology.

After graduating from URI in 1970, he returned to New York for a short time before settling in Rhode Island in 1974 to work as a handwriting expert at URI’s Crime Laboratory.

Later in the 1970s, Seifer taught at URI’s night school, where he met instructor Howard Smukler, who taught a course there on extraterrestrial life. Seifer soon became a freelance writer for Smukler’s ESP Magazine, launching his writing career.

Seifer went on to earn a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1980, and a Ph.D. from Saybrook University, in San Francisco, in 1986, before eventually returning to Rhode Island. 

Seifer’s teaching career also included stints as a professor of parapsychology at Providence College and of general psychology at Roger Williams University.

Seifer, who became a Bar Mitzvah in 1961, has continued his Jewish education into adulthood with his study of the Kabbalah.

“My religion is very important to me,” he said.

 SAM SERBY is a native of East Greenwich and attended Temple Sinai, in Cranston, for many years. He is a recent graduate of Johnson & Wales University.