That was a good article Revenant, very interesting.  My paternal grandfather died of consumption when he was only 40 years old, back in 1928.  Thats when my mother, who was 15 at the time, went to work to support her family, her mother and 4 other siblings. It's a shame I never knew him, as he sounded like a very interesting man.  But I digress….dont know if you've looked for anything yet, alicat, but I just had to google vampirologist     First you have to see this on wikipedia, and check out where it says this guy went to school.  AND he "founded" the "Vampire Research Center" in Elmherst, NY!  Hmmm…wonder what kind of people work at that place….LOL  Get a load of his reputation.      

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Kaplan

Education

City College of New York: BA in Sociology.
Stony Brook University: Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies.

Pacific College: Ph.D. in Sociology (1977.)

(Note: Stony Brook University has no graduate program established for someone to obtain a Masters in Interdesciplinary Studies and Pacific College does not have a doctorate program in Sociology and did not have one in 1977)

Reputation & Recognition

Kaplan enjoyed a reputation as a dedicated and skilled researcher, with great integrity, though all of his credentials never checked out.

And I loved this response in "Yahoo answers" re vampirologist   "Hi there,i never heard of it .Sounds like something from – buffy the vampire slayer.Maybe there`s such a thing as – Werewolfologist also"