The Dharma Initiative and its origins are first explored in the episode "
Orientation" by an orientation film in the
Swan Station.
Pierre Chang (
François Chau), under the
pseudonym of Dr. Marvin Candle, explains that the project began in 1970, created by two doctoral candidates from the University of Michigan,
Gerald and Karen DeGroot (Michael Gilday and Courtney Lavigne), and was funded by
Alvar Hanso (Ian Patrick Williams) of the
Hanso Foundation. They imagined a "large-scale communal research compound", where scientists and
free thinkers from around the globe could research
meteorology,
psychology,
parapsychology,
zoology,
electromagnetism, and a sixth discipline that the film begins to identify as "
utopian social-" before being cut off
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Karen_DeGroot