Jim is a 30-year veteran in applied psychological research.  He has authored over 150 articles based on many grants, and his research has been profiled by a myriad of media outlets and programs, such as the Discovery Channel, A&E, BBC, National Geographic, NBC's Today Show, USA,Today, New Scientist and Psychology Today.

His main research interests include transliminality, the phenomenology of ghosts, haunts and poltergeists, as well as the psychometrics and psychology of paranormal belief and experience. Houran also has a passion for multidisciplinary collaborations and public education in science. He holds a BA Psychology from Benedictine University, MA Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois at Springfield and a Ph.D. Medicine (Psychology) from the University of Adelaide. His doctoral supervisor was Michael A. Thalbourne.

Aside from his daily work as an organizational psychologist with Kingsley Gate Partners, he serves as adjunct faculty at the Laboratory for Statistics and Computation, ISLA (in Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto, Porugal) and an editorial board member for the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and the Australian Journal of Parapsychology.

As of January 2022, Jim assumed the Editor-in-Chief role at the Journal of Scientific Exploration.