Meet the Team

Program Director, Spiritual Care

Moana Meadow, MA, MDiv, has served as staff director for the Certificate Program since 2022, as well as developed and taught the spiritual care curriculum in all three years. She brings experience as a birth doula, hospice chaplain, spiritual director, and psychedelic guide. She was ordained as an interfaith minister at the Chaplaincy Institute, where she served as guest faculty and academic advisor until 2018. She later served as executive director of a non-profit church focused on plant medicine traditions, and participated in the early development of the Sacred Plant Alliance, where she now serves on the advisory board. She has studied with Indigenous elders in the United States and Mexico, as well as with Western practitioners providing psychedelic facilitation in a variety of contexts. She holds a BS from MIT, an MA from Boston University, and an MDiv from the Pacific School of Religion, and she completed four units of Clinical Pastoral Education at hospitals in Hawaii and California.

Faculty Director and Principal Investigator

Tina Trujillo is an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Education, where she has researched and taught about the politics of education; policy analysis; epistemology; the links among education, democracy, and social justice. Her current interests focus on nature and well-being, as well as scientific, spiritual, and Indigenous ways of knowing. Tina is faculty director of the Berkeley Psychedelic Facilitation Certificate Program, where she conducts ethnographic research and an internal evaluation of the program. She is interested in understanding how the professional preparation of psychedelic facilitators can be rigorous, diverse and inclusive; serve to identify best practices in the professional preparation of psychedelic facilitators; and advance the use of psychedelics as tools for mending humans’ relationships with the broader natural community.

Contemplative Practice Specialist

Angella is a multidisciplinary facilitator specializing in navigating difference across cultures and identities. Her background spans design thinking, integral coaching, depth psychotherapy, and contemplative practices. She obtained her M.A. from Pacifica Graduate Institute and is trained in the Hakomi Method and MAPS MDMA-Assisted Psychedelic Therapy. She is an ordained Zen monk with Two Arrows Zen and has over twenty years of meditation experience. Angella has developed an interdisciplinary framework for psychedelic facilitation that emphasizes “liminal fluency”: the capacity to work skillfully with clients across different cultures, identities, and ways of knowing. At the BCSP, she taught Contemplative Practice and Culturally Informed Integration practices from 2024-2025, and continues to support the program as our Design and Integration Lead.

Psychotherapy

Joseph Zamaria, PsyD, ABPP, is a licensed and board-certified clinical psychologist and an associate clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the UCSF School of Medicine. At the BCSP, he directed the psychotherapy curriculum from 2022-2025. He has been a researcher of psychedelics for over fifteen years, and at UCSF, has served as a therapist and researcher in clinical trials examining the potential of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to treat a range of conditions. Dr. Zamaria is a founding member of the American Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Psychological Association (AMENA-PSY) and serves on the advisory board of the Fireside Project.

Reciprocity and Ecological Awareness

Kathleen Harrison, MA, is an ethnobotanist who has traveled and studied for five decades in
indigenous cultures of the Americas, and in the Western psychedelic subculture that arose in
the 1960s. She explores the relationships between plants, fungi, and human beings –
particularly in the realms which are often hidden: cultural beliefs, rituals of healing and
initiation, vision-seeking modalities, and creative forms that illustrate a plant-human
relationship. She also studies and teaches the deep history of humans in nature, encompassing
times before the advent of agriculture, and before colonization. Kathleen founded Botanical
Dimensions in 1985, with her then-husband, the late Terence McKenna. She developed an
extensive ethnobotany research library. With her daughter, she has nurtured a long friendship
with a sprawling Mazatec family in southern Mexico. Kathleen has taught courses for
universities and other institutes in California, Hawaii and the northwest Amazon.

Practicum Supervisor

Kristina Hunter is an author, psychedelic educator, and consultant specializing in psychedelic integration through the lens of psychology, ethics, and Buddhist contemplative practice. She consults with clinicians on individualized approaches to psychedelic facilitation, emphasizing preparation, integration, self-awareness, and harm reduction. At the BCSP, Kristina contributed to developing the core curriculum and served as Program Coordinator from 2022 to 2024 and as Practicum Supervisor for the 2024-25 program year. She oversaw and co-taught the ethics curriculum alongside Kylea Taylor, while tracking state-level legalization developments with specialized expertise in Oregon’s Measure 109 psilocybin services policy.

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Mary Sanders is a psychotherapist, educator and community builder infusing passion into both her clinical endeavors and community initiatives. With over a decade of experience in community mental health, she’s provided psychotherapy and clinical case management to BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, formerly unhoused veterans, immigrants, refugees, foster youth and families grappling with forced migration, war trauma, complex post-traumatic stress disorder,  and various forms of oppression.T Trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy at CIIS CPTR, MAPS, and the Ketamine Training Center, Mary is also equipped with certifications in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems (Level 1). She served as a founding board member of the national organization, People of Color Psychedelic Collective championing inclusivity and accessibility in healing spaces.  At the BCSP, Mary directed the JEDI curriculum from 2022-2024, lecturing on historical and current systems of oppression, exploring collective healing through an intersectional lens, and facilitating conversations around community-oriented infrastructures that center accessibility and culturally attuned care. 

Ancestral Entheogenic Traditions

Susana Bustos, PhD, is a psychotherapist and music therapist trained in Chile, whose work focuses on the transformative potential of expanded states of consciousness. A Holotropic Breathwork practitioner since 1999, Susana directed the Spiritual Emergence Network in the U.S. between 2016-2020. Her 20+ years of study of entheogenic traditions from the Americas, especially their healing practices and songs, brought her to teach and mentor students in psychedelic-assisted therapy trainings in the Bay Area and abroad, and to co-found the Escuela de Psicovegetalismo. At BSCP, she led the Ancestral Entheogenic Traditions curriculum from 2022-2025, aiming to bridge the conversation between anthropocentric healing systems and those based on the relationship of human cultures with other sentiences in nature.

Andrew Penn, RN, MS, NP, is a board certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, trained at the University of California, San Francisco.  He has completed extensive training in Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy at the California Institute for Integral Studies, MAPS, and the Usona Institute. He was a study therapist in the MAPS sponsored Phase 3 study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD and is a Co-PI in the Phase 2 Usona sponsored study of psilocybin facilitated therapy for major depression.

He has co-authored an article in the American Journal of Nursing on psychedelic assisted therapies. He serves as an Adjunct  Professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Nursing where he teaches psychopharmacology and was an Attending Nurse Practitioner at the San Francisco Veterans Administration. He is a cofounder of OPENurses, a professional organization for nurses interested in psychedelic research and practice.  He has been invited to present internationally on improving medication adherence, cannabis pharmacology, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, grief psychotherapy,  treatment-resistant depression, diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, and the art and science of psychopharmacologic practice. He has been invited to speak at SXSW, the Aspen Health Ideas Festival,and the Singapore Ministry of Health, written for the Los Angeles Times, and interviewed in Forbes, and on the BBC World Service. 

Ariel Clark is an attorney and advocate who is Odawa Anishinaabe from Nwejong (Where The Rivers Meet) in Michigan. After practicing Indian law at California Indian Legal Services, she co-founded Clark Howell LLP, a corporate and regulatory law firm focused on cannabis and psychedelics that has engaged in policy reform and culture-change efforts that honor the Earth. Ariel also co-founded the Psychedelic Bar Association and has partnered with Life Comes From It for land-based healing and land reunion work. She holds a BA in religious studies and a JD from Berkeley Law School, where she participated in discussions with Native American law students that led to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Bob Jesse has been a quiet driving force behind the contemporary psychedelic renaissance. He was instrumental in forming the psilocybin research team at Johns Hopkins University and has co-authored several of its papers. He has led the drafting of numerous foundational documents, including the Code of Ethics for Spiritual Guides in 1995; an amicus brief for the US Supreme Court in a successful religious liberty case in 2005; and a statement on Open Science, now signed by numerous leaders in the psychedelic field, in 2017. Bob studied electrical engineering and computer science at Johns Hopkins, consulted for AT&T Bell Labs, and worked at Oracle as a vice president of business development.

Bob Otis brings forty years of engagement with entheogenic sacraments. He is an ordained minister, facilitator and garden steward for Sacred Garden Community in Oakland, with degrees in psychology, religious studies, and sociology, and a Master’s in divinity from the University of Chicago. Otis was the founding chairperson for Decriminalize Nature Oakland and a co-founder of the Sacred Plant Alliance, an organization of entheogenic churches gathered for careful, transparent self-regulation, fellowship, best practices, peer review, and ethical support. Otis is the invited chair for Alma Institute’s Oregon psilocybin facilitation training program, chair of the Portal Community Center for entheogenic education in Berkeley, and an invited advisory committee member to Oregon, California, and Colorado decriminalization/legalization policy initiatives.

Charles S. Grob, M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine and the Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He previously held faculty positions at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the University of California at Irvine. He has conducted approved clinical research with psychedelics since the early 1990s. From 2004-2008 he was the Principal Investigator of the first study in several decades to examine the use of a psilocybin treatment model for patients with advanced-cancer anxiety. He has also conducted research into the range of effects of MDMA, in both normal volunteers and in a selected subject population of adult autistics with severe social anxiety. And, he has conducted a series of ayahuasca research studies in Brazil. Over the last thirty years Dr. Grob has published numerous articles and chapters on psychedelics in the medical and psychiatric literatures and he is the editor of Hallucinogens: A Reader (Putnam/Tarcher, 2002), co-editor (with Roger Walsh) of Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics (SUNY Press, 2005) and co-editor (with James Grigsby) of the recently published Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens (Guilford Press, 2021). He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute.

Courtney Watson is a queer Black mother, lover, and community member in Ohlone Lisjan territory (Oakland, California). She is descended from enslaved Africans stolen from West and Central Africa, Louisiana Chahtah, their white European oppressors and their disappointed Gallic old ones. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex therapist, and medicine woman studying African and American Indigenous knowledge systems. She owns Doorway Therapeutic Services, a group therapy practice focused on the mental health needs of Black Indigenous people of color, queer folks, trans, gender non-conforming, non-binary and two-spirit individuals. Her non-profit, Access to Doorways, helps subsidize the cost of psychedelic training programs and sponsors queer- and BIPOC-led psychedelic projects.

Neuroscience

David Presti teaches neurobiology, psychology, and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley. For more than a decade he worked in the clinical treatment of addiction and PTSD at the San Francisco VA Medical Center; and for two decades he has been engaged in dialogue and teaching on science with Tibetan Buddhist monastic communities in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. He has doctorates in biology from Caltech and in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon, as is author of Foundational Concepts in Neuroscience: A Brain-Mind Odyssey (Norton, 2016) and of Mind Beyond Brain (Columbia, 2018).

Evan Sola, PsyD, is a licensed psychologist practicing in Oakland, where he offers ketamine-assisted therapy. He is passionate about creating a bridge between psychedelics and depth psychotherapy. He is a co-author of the MAPS treatment manual and was a therapist in MDMA clinical trials for PTSD at UCSF, and for the treatment of anxiety associated with life threatening illness. He now serves as a supervisor and educator for several psychedelic therapy organizations. Evan’s dissertation involved coding themes of transformation emerging in combat veterans during psychedelic therapy sessions in FDA trials.  

Eve Ekman, Ph.D., MSW, is a teacher, writer, and contemplative social scientist. At the BCSP, Eve served as a guest instructor during the 2023-2024 academic year, and as a core instructor in 2022-2023. She led experiential sessions on the science and practice of compassion, emotional awareness, and pro-social connection as supportive tools for psychedelic participants and healthcare professionals. Eve’s qualitative research has explored burnout, emotional awareness, psilocybin-assisted therapy, and meditation. With the support of the Dalai Lama, Eve and her father collaborated on the Atlas of Emotion, an online tool for developing emotional awareness. Eve is the lead trainer for the Cultivating Emotional Balance training program, Well-Being and Mental Health Lead at Apple, Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center at UCB, and a Mind and Life Institute fellow.

Jason Butler, Ph.D., is a professor of Integral Counseling Psychology at CIIS. He is a licensed clinical psychologist, a psychotherapist and supervisor at Sage Integrative Health, specializing in depth-oriented ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. His therapeutic approach is an integration of archetypal, relational, somatic, and liberation frameworks, with a lifelong interest in the study of dreams and the engagement of imagination in healing practices. He is deeply committed to broadening diversity, accessibility, and theoretical rigor in the field of psychedelic psychotherapy.

He has written several articles and book chapters focused on the intersection of depth psychology and social justice as well as a book entitled Archetypal Psychotherapy: The Clinical Legacy of James Hillman. He co-authored an article entitled “Blinded by the White: Addressing Power and Privilege in Psychedelic Medicine,” which highlights the lack of representation of people of color in psychedelic medicine and articulates several key considerations to advance the field in a more equitable direction. He is also a co-editor and contributing author of an edited volume entitled Integral Psychedelic Therapy: The Non-Ordinary Art of Psychospiritual Healing.

Dr. Joe Tafur, M.D. (he/him) is a Colombian-American integrative physician. After completing his family medicine training at UCLA, Dr. Tafur spent two years in academic research at the UCSD Department of Psychiatry. After his research fellowship, over a period of six years, he lived and worked in the Peruvian Amazon at the traditional healing center Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual, training there as an Ayahuasquero. In his book The Fellowship of the River: A Medical Doctor’s Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine, through a series of stories, Dr. Tafur shares his unique experience and integrative medical theories. He eventually returned to Arizona where he completed a fellowship in integrative medicine at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. With his spiritual community in Phoenix, Dr. Tafur co-founded the Church of the Eagle and the Condor (CEC). Dr. Tafur is also a co-founder of the nonprofit Modern Spirit where he assists in their educational programs. Among their projects is the Modern Spirit Epigenetics Project, an analysis of the epigenetic impact of MAPS MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

Julie is a psychiatric and family nurse practitioner. She received her master’s in nursing from the University of Miami and UCSF. After working in an ER, the Veteran Affairs, and  private practice for seven years, Julie co-founded and co-directed an integrative mental health and wellness center that incorporates legal psychedelic-assisted treatments. She is trained in ketamine-assisted therapy by the KRIYA Institute. Her clinical work focuses on psychiatric care, integration of altered states of consciousness and ketamine-assisted therapy.  Clinically, her work is informed by her certification in Somatic Experiencing, as well as extensive experience in Central and South America working within Mazatec and Shipibo traditions. She has also co-authored book chapters on the therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines.

Ethics for Expanded States

Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT, developed and teaches InnerEthics®, a self-reflective, self-compassionate approach to ethical relationship for therapists and practitioners. She has been writing and teaching about ethics for almost three decades. Kylea started studying with Stanislav Grof, M.D. and Christina Grof in 1984 and worked with Grof as a Senior Trainer in the Grof Transpersonal Training throughout the 1990s, facilitating and observing thousands of extra-ordinary state of consciousness sessions. She is the author of The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship with Clients, The Breathwork Experience, Considering Holotropic Breathwork®, and is the editor of Exploring Holotropic Breathwork®. At the BCSP, she brought her expertise instructing learners in the nuances of ethics for psychedelic care.

Luma Muhtadie, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of PTSD and complex trauma, attachment disruptions, and adjustment to major life transitions. She has served diverse individuals and underserved groups as a staff psychologist on the PTSD Clinical Team at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs and in private practice, and as an adjunct professor at California State University Los Angeles, Smith College, and the University of San Francisco. Dr. Muhtadie earned her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where her clinical work and research focused on the role of mind-body connections in stress and well-being. She has co-authored numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and contributed as an author and editor to books.

Mariavittoria Mangini, PhD, FNP has written extensively on the impact of psychedelic experiences in shaping the lives of her contemporaries, and has worked closely with many of the most distinguished investigators in this field. In 2007, she co-founded  the Women’s Visionary Council, a nonprofit organization that supports investigations into non-ordinary forms of consciousness and organizes gatherings of researchers, healers, artists, and activists whose work explores these states. She is Professor Emerita in the School of Science, Allied Health, and Nursing at Holy Names University. For the last 50 years, she has been a part of the Hog Farm, a well-known communal family based in Berkeley and in Laytonville, California.

Mati is a spiritual care provider, psychedelic chaplain, and practicing performance artist. Her background is in hospital chaplaincy, palliative care, and ketamine-assisted therapy. Mati guides clients through immersive experiences as a means of spiritual inquiry and emergence. She offers psychedelic integration informed by creative praxis and trauma-informed spiritual care. She obtained her M.Div. from the University of Chicago and trained in Integral Movement and Performance Practice (IMPP) at Arthaus Berlin in Germany. She completed a two-year foundational intensive in trauma integration, group coherence building, and contemplative practices with Thomas Hübl and has a certificate in psychedelic-assisted therapies from Naropa University, where she has taught and facilitated contemplative practice and spiritual assessments.

Mireya Alejo Marcet is a licensed psychotherapist and expressive arts therapist in private practice in San Francisco and Berkeley. She has been a certified holotropic breathwork practitioner since 1993, and is committed to the process of spiritual growth, consciousness exploration and creative expression. She studied social anthropology at Universidad Metropolitana in Mexico City, where her thesis focused on traditional women healers (curanderas), and participated in a comparative study of traditional and alternative ways of healing. Mireya has a strong interest in the integration of spiritual emergency processes, intergenerational and collective/historical trauma, diversity and gender issues, the immigrant experience, multicultural understanding, and the power of ritual, ceremony and creativity in community.

Nicky Mehtani, MD, MPH, works in the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF School of Medicine. She received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Nicky is interested in using applied epidemiology to help develop and advocate for policy change and interventions that support the health of patients who have been marginalized by the current state of healthcare infrastructure, in particular those who have suffered from substance use disorders, HIV, tuberculosis, justice-involvement, and homelessness. My research to date has focused on strategies to improve access to treatment for people living with HIV and addiction, domestically in East Baltimore as well as overseas in Nepal and India. In addition to continuing to pursue community-based participatory research, she works to design and implement effective policy interventions that target the root causes of health disparities.

Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, is head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London and director of the Psychedelics Division of Neuroscape at UCSF. After obtaining an MA in psychoanalysis from Brunel University London, Robin completed a PhD in psychopharmacology from the University of Bristol. At Imperial College London, he has designed and completed human brain imaging studies with LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and DMT; a clinical trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression; a double-blind randomized controlled trial comparing psilocybin with escitalopram for major depressive disorder; and a multimodal imaging study in healthy volunteers receiving psilocybin for the first time. In April 2019, Robin founded the Centre for Psychedelic Research, the first of its kind in the world.

Contemplative Science and Practice

Sean Feit Oakes, PhD (he/they, queer, Puerto Rican & English, living on Pomo ancestral land in Northern California), teaches Buddhism and somatic practice focusing on the integration of meditation, trauma resolution, and social justice. He received Insight Meditation teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, and wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance. Sean holds certifications in Somatic Experiencing (SEP, assistant), and Yoga (E-RYT 500, YACEP), and teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, Insight Timer, and elsewhere.

Yvan Beaussant is a palliative care physician and investigator. He holds a masters degree in ethics in Paris Descartes University and graduated with a certificate in psychedelic therapies and research at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he now serves as a mentor. He leads the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he studies the effects and mechanisms of psilocybin-, MDMA- and Ketamine-assisted therapy on depression, pain, and existential distress in patients with serious illnesses. His research also aims at identifying and addressing the barriers of equitable implementation for PAT in serious illness care.

Dr. Zach Skiles is a former Marine and OIF combat veteran, trained as a clinical psychologist within the Northern California and Northern Arizona VA Health Care Systems, who began specializing in psychedelic-assisted therapies for individuals and groups with US Special Forces communities through The Mission Within. As a postdoctoral fellow with the Translational Psychedelic Research Program atUCSF, Dr. Skiles assisted in the design and facilitation of several psilocybin trials and a 5-MeO-DMT trial. He served as the primary therapist in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy trials at the Portland VA, including psilocybin-assisted therapy for methamphetamine use disorder and MDMA-assisted group therapy for PTSD.

Dr. Skiles continued to serve as the resident psychologist and coach for veteran-focused organizations such as Heroic Hearts Project and The Mission Within. In these roles, he has offered integrative wellness services and administered sacraments including psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine, and 5-MeO-DMT.Dr. Skiles is also developing domestic and international training programs in group psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for clinicians and organizations operating in conflict zones across Europe and the Middle East.

Ariel Clark is an attorney and advocate who is Odawa Anishinaabe from Nwejong (Where The Rivers Meet) in Michigan. After practicing Indian law at California Indian Legal Services, she co-founded Clark Howell LLP, a corporate and regulatory law firm focused on cannabis and psychedelics that has engaged in policy reform and culture-change efforts that honor the Earth. Ariel also co-founded the Psychedelic Bar Association and has partnered with Life Comes From It for land-based healing and land reunion work. She holds a BA in religious studies and a JD from Berkeley Law School, where she participated in discussions with Native American law students that led to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Belinda Eriacho is of Dine’ (Navajo) and A:shiwi (Pueblo of Zuni) descent. Her maternal clan is One-Who-Walks-Around and she was born for the Zuni Pueblo people.  Raised on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, Belinda is the wisdom carrier, healer, and founder of Kaalogii LLC, focused on cultural and traditional teaching and inner healing. Belinda is also an international speaker on various topics impacting Native American communities in the United States.

With degrees in Health Sciences, Technology, and Public Health, Belinda has participated in MAPS’ MDMA Training for People of Color, and EMDR training.

Belinda is one of the founders and Board members of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor, a Native American Engagement Coordinator for SoundMind Institute, and a Program Advisor for Naropa University. She is the author of several articles: “Considerations for Psychedelic Therapists when working with Native American People and Communities,” “Guidelines for Inclusion of Indigenous People into Psychedelic Science Conferences” and “This is not Native American History, this is US History with Belinda Eriacho.” In addition, she is a contributing author to Psychedelic Justice: Toward a Diverse and Equitable Psychedelic Culture.

Courtney Watson is a queer Black mother, lover, and community member in Ohlone Lisjan territory (Oakland, California). She is descended from enslaved Africans stolen from West and Central Africa, Louisiana Chahtah, their white European oppressors and their disappointed Gallic old ones. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex therapist, and medicine woman studying African and American Indigenous knowledge systems. She owns Doorway Therapeutic Services, a group therapy practice focused on the mental health needs of Black Indigenous people of color, queer folks, trans, gender non-conforming, non-binary and two-spirit individuals. Her non-profit, Access to Doorways, helps subsidize the cost of psychedelic training programs and sponsors queer- and BIPOC-led psychedelic projects.

Dr. Joe Tafur, M.D. is a Colombian-American family physician originally from Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of The Fellowship of the River: A Medical Doctor’s Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine. He is currently a fellow at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine. Dr. Tafur is a co-founder of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor (CEC). The CEC is currently pursuing legal protection for their practice of sacred ayahuasca ceremony. Dr. Tafur is also a co-founder of the nonprofit Modern Spirit. Among their projects is an epigenetic analysis of the impact of MAPS MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.indigenous cultures of the Americas, and in the Western psychedelic subculture that arose in
the 1960s. She explores the relationships between plants, fungi, and human beings –
particularly in the realms which are often hidden: cultural beliefs, rituals of healing and
initiation, vision-seeking modalities, and creative forms that illustrate a plant-human
relationship. She also studies and teaches the deep history of humans in nature, encompassing
times before the advent of agriculture, and before colonization. Kathleen founded Botanical
Dimensions in 1985, with her then-husband, the late Terence McKenna. She developed an
extensive ethnobotany research library. With her daughter, she has nurtured a long friendship
with a sprawling Mazatec family in southern Mexico. Kathleen has taught courses for
universities and other institutes in California, Hawaii and the northwest Amazon.

Florie St Aime (she/her) is a Fat, Black, Queer Relationship Anarchist born and bi-culturally raised in Brooklyn NY as a first-generation child of Haitian immigrant families. These experiences of living inform her offerings that she grounds in an orientation towards liberation. This orientation roots her work in naming and blaming social constructs instead of individuals; encouraging curiosity and sensing as resistance; and practicing human connection and care towards all beings as radical action. Florie invites others into liberation practices through group facilitation/workshops, individual counseling, clinical supervision, program development of training programs, writing and holding sacred space.

Dr. Hokanson is a psychiatrist that works with adolescents, young adults, women, and people of color who would benefit from a holistic mental health healing approach. She also conducts research in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and ketamine assisted psychotherapy for obsession-compulsion disorder, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Hokanson completed her medical training at UT Southwestern medical school and psychiatric training at Yale University where she was the Chief Psychiatry Resident. She has completed additional training in integrative psychiatry as well as MDMA-assisted psychotherapy training for the treatment of PTSD. She is a study physician and co-therapist on several clinical trials for psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for the obsession-compulsion disorder and major depression disorder as well as Ketamine combined with prolonged exposure therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Hokanson is currently the Director of Operations for Yale Program for Psychedelic Studies and the Yale Enact Research Collaborative. 

Dr. Joe Tafur, M.D. (he/him) is a Colombian-American integrative physician. After completing his family medicine training at UCLA, Dr. Tafur spent two years in academic research at the UCSD Department of Psychiatry. After his research fellowship, over a period of six years, he lived and worked in the Peruvian Amazon at the traditional healing center Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual, training there as an Ayahuasquero. In his book The Fellowship of the River: A Medical Doctor’s Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine, through a series of stories, Dr. Tafur shares his unique experience and integrative medical theories. He eventually returned to Arizona where he completed a fellowship in integrative medicine at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. With his spiritual community in Phoenix, Dr. Tafur co-founded the Church of the Eagle and the Condor (CEC). Dr. Tafur is also a co-founder of the nonprofit Modern Spirit where he assists in their educational programs. Among their projects is the Modern Spirit Epigenetics Project, an analysis of the epigenetic impact of MAPS MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

Julián Jaramillo is an Ecuadorian traditionally ordained Miruku (Medicine Man), with over two decades of walking the path of the master plants and healing arts with his Chachi, Kichwa and Mestizo Elders. Julian has practiced as a psychologist, trainer, and supervisor in Ecuador for over ten years before moving to Portland, OR in 2021, bringing his unique perspective and skills to the lives of people in the WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) world. In his work, he combines Process Work, shamanism, modern science, coaching, and his experience as a therapist to help clients realize their deeper Self.

Dr. Martin Epson is an adult and forensic psychiatrist working in the SF Bay Area. Dr. Epson works with Marin County, the VA, is an Assistant Clinical Professor UCSF Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences – Weill Institute for Neurosciences, and in private practice. Dr. Epson completed the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) MDMA-assisted psychotherapy certification program and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP) Psychedelic Facilitation Certification Program. Dr. Epson provides culturally sensitive trauma-informed care, psychedelic assisted therapy (ketamine), and applies a psychospiritual and psychodynamic lens to his psychiatric practices.

Mona Kim, PMHNP (she/her) is a Korean American board-certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who received her Masters of Science degree and clinical training at UCSF and Masters of Arts degree at Stanford University. She has seven years of experience in addiction medicine and recovery treatment and four years of experience in ketamine treatment. She also has an interest in early child development and instructed courses on attachment theory as a graduate student instructor at UC Berkeley. She received her Certificate in Psychedelic Therapies and Research from the California Institute of Integral Studies and trained with MAPS. She is passionate about culturally sensitive and somatic-oriented preparation and integration, and is currently training in Somatic Experiencing for certification.

Nicky Mehtani, MD, MPH, works in the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF School of Medicine. She received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Nicky is interested in using applied epidemiology to help develop and advocate for policy change and interventions that support the health of patients who have been marginalized by the current state of healthcare infrastructure, in particular those who have suffered from substance use disorders, HIV, tuberculosis, justice-involvement, and homelessness. My research to date has focused on strategies to improve access to treatment for people living with HIV and addiction, domestically in East Baltimore as well as overseas in Nepal and India. In addition to continuing to pursue community-based participatory research, she works to design and implement effective policy interventions that target the root causes of health disparities.

Ric Escobedo (he/him) is descendant of the Wixárika people from the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains in what is today known as Mexico. He is a Civil Rights and Climate Change Activist living on p’squosa –Wenatchi Ancestral Lands. Ric and his family are caretakers of a healing sanctuary property sitting on the foothills of the Cascades Mountains in central Washington State.

Ric is a Strategy Consultant with a special focus on Indigenous-lead Conservation, and community/ tribal engagements and workforce development in Clean Hydrogen Economies. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice with a focus on healing intergenerational trauma, complex trauma, and addictions. His service is community-centered specifically with migrant agricultural workers, tribal communities and combat veterans. As a former Public Service Employee, Ric provided mental health services, advocacy and reengagement to tribal and migrant agricultural youth. During the summer months, he provided outreach to migrant camps along-side community health clinics in north central Washington.

Ric is co-founder of KIERI Healing Center, a healing sanctuary in development providing traditional ways of healing, Ecotherapy and earth-based healing practices integrating sustainable conservation. He serves as a board member at the Wenatchee River Institute (WRI).

Dr. Robert Strayhan, MD (he/him) is a Board Certified Adult/General Psychiatrist. He graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1983 and completed Psychiatry Residency training at Wilford Hall Medical Center USAF in 1987. He completed a Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry in 1995 and was Board Certified in this Subspecialty from 1998-2008. Highlights of his career are as follows: he completed the Michael Harner, Three Year Program of Advanced Initiations in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing, is a graduate of the 2021 CIIS CPTR Program, is a 200hr RYA Yoga Instructor, Certified in Methods of Japanese Psychology (under the tutelage of Greg Krech), completed a 2 year mentorship in Sacred Ecstatics (under the tutelage of Brad and Hillary Keeney), and is a Makhosi initiate to Sangoma indigenous ways (Under the guidance of Gogo Ekhaya Esima). He is currently the Program Director for Psychiatry Residency training within the Unity Health System.  His academic interests are in transpersonal psychiatry, Diasporan existential issues, cross cultural psychiatry and the North American Diasporan Healing way of Hoodoo. (Resides in Arkansas.)

Sarah Carr, LMFT is the Founder and Clinical Director of mindfulSF, a wellness clinic in San Francisco that offers individual and group therapy, community wellness classes, and Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. At mindfulSF, Sarah’s roles include therapist, supervisor, mentor, and teacher. Clinically, she specializes in OCD, anxiety-related issues and trauma. As a long time Vipassana practitioner, Sarah teaches contemplative classes with a focus on somatics, mindfulness and self-compassion. Expanding access to care for diverse communities is a foundational component of Sarah’s work. She particularly enjoys supporting others who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and poly. After completing her certificate with BCSP, Sarah spent time in Mexico learning about the Mazatec tradition from healers in the community. She is particularly interested in exploring the intersection of indigenous wisdom with plant medicine, and with integrating this knowledge into psychedelic assisted therapy.

Dr. Terence Ching (he/him) is a licensed clinical psychologist and instructor co-leading psilocybin clinical trials for OCD, depression, and other mental disorders in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. Terence was also a study therapist for a Phase 2 site dedicated to recruiting BIPOC participants for MDMA-AT for PTSD. He has interests and expertise in: (1) fear-/trauma-based disorders; (2) integrative cognitive-behavior therapies (CBT); (3) culturally attuned care; and (4) therapeutic applications of psychedelics.

Wilhelmina De Castro, LCSW (She/They) serves as PRATI’s Executive Director and Founder of Integrate Psychedelic Wellness.  Wilhelmina trained in KAP (Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy) through PRATI and MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy through MAPS. They support organizations in building justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives, systems, and cultures. Wilhelmina also works as a lead therapist in a Psilocybin Phase 3 Clinical Trial for Treatment-Resistant Depression and sits on the Advisory Board for Thank You Life.

As a Queer, Filipinx, non-binary person, they are deeply committed to anti-oppressive work, diversifying the psychedelic space, and uplifting the voices of BIPOC and LGBTQIA2s+ people. Wilhelmina is currently practicing KAP with individuals, groups, and families, and offering low-cost/donation-based KAP. She specializes in the areas of anxiety, depression, trauma, and life transitions. She has significant experience in working with the Queer folx and People of the Global majority and communities that have been impacted by global and systemic oppression.

Amanda Coggin offers mindfulness & end-of-life care as an educator & spiritual care provider. She began spiritual work with meditation in the Buddhist Vipassana tradition while living & working in Southeast Asia in 2000. Buddhist death & dying work followed as a hospice caregiver & Volunteer Coordinator at Zen Hospice Project. After a Clinical Pastoral Education residency year at UCSF, she continued as an adult & pediatric chaplain for almost ten years. She trained at UCSF’s Practice-PC: Interprofessional Continuing Education in Palliative Care for Practicing Clinicians serving palliative care patients. Amanda offers Open Death Conversations from her former work with Zen Hospice Project and spiritual support to the community from training in Mindfulness-Based Childbirth & Parenting. With a focus on birth & new parent support, particularly tending to newly bereaved parents after the loss of a child, she believes that the suffering of humans and the planet is transformed when held in community with equanimity and heart. Amanda now lives in The Netherlands with her family.

Catherine Bae (she/them) is a former educator and immigrant rights advocate, currently in private practice as a psychotherapist. Her cultural background is tied to both sides of the Pacific, as a Korean American born in Tokyo and raised in California. Her interests include history, Vipassana meditation, backpacking/nature, music, writing, and traveling, each of which inform the way she approaches the therapeutic process and the navigation of the complex landscape of our past and present. She is also committed to understanding how culture, power, and intergenerational legacies can shape our lives and sense of selves. Her work is psychodynamic and cultural-relational and with a liberational lens. Catherine is passionate about working collaboratively with individuals, couples, and groups to help folks recognize, honor, and shift ancestral patterns. 

Claudia Vides (she/her) is an Indigenous-Latinx cis-woman raised in Los Angeles. She is also a second-generation immigrant with roots in Guatemala and El Salvador. Her interests include reading, hiking/nature, cooking, and connecting with her loved ones and community. She also has an established Vipassana meditation practice of over twenty years. Claudia currently works as a psychotherapist in private practice with adults. She has years of practical experience supporting clients with expanded states of consciousness. She also worked in community mental health settings with formerly incarcerated adults. Her style is generally grounded in somatic and transpersonal approaches. Claudia is interested in the intersection of spirituality, healing, and justice. She is a certified Somatic Experiencing practitioner and level two certified in IFS. She also recently completed the BCSP psychedelic facilitation program and had the privilege of learning and growing with her fellow cohort members and teachers.

A Los Angeles native with Louisiana roots, Felisha is a marriage and family therapist in California with deep love for plant allies, good reads, and protected peace. Her inspiration meets at the intersection of creativity, the transpersonal, liberation and the deep knowing that we belong to us. 

Service within community is an embodied value, in part reflected by nearly two decades in wellness and community mental health; inpatient and outpatient care and schools. A well resourced, interdependent community allows us all to thrive. Felisha offers her skills in support of this balance and sacred possibility. She currently maintains a private practice of therapy, consultation and integration services. 

Ilana Trumbull, M.S., L.Ac., (she/they). Born in the summer of love and raised by a folk music singing broadcast engineer from SF and a Jewish RN from NYC. Ilana has practiced Acupuncture and Plant Medicine since 2000, integrating meditation and somatic inquiry. As an End of Life Doula, she brings calm loving awareness to those traversing passages between living and dying. A rich background in the wisdom/somatic traditions of Jewish, Buddhist and Yoga practices guides this spirit integrating work. Ilana has a degree in Religion and Gender Studies from Wesleyan University and studied in Buddhism/Chinese religion in literature at the Univ. of Chicago Divinity School. She practices embodiment through meditation, yoga, walking in the woods, dancing at the ocean, music, loving relationships and motherhood. Single mother of 2 teens. She has worked in addiction recovery, mental health support, cancer care, trauma recovery, LGBTQIA2S+ advocacy. Seek to honor land, move well, speak and create with wisdom and presence to all beings. A graduate of the inaugural UC Berkeley Psychedelic Facilitation Certificate Program cohort, Ilana assisted as second year fellow last year and is returning for year three – a magic number!

Julie Auslander, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker with 24 years of experience. Her training not only prepared her for the clinical work, but to advocate for social justice. She currently manages the mental health services for a school district, while maintaining a small private practice. Julie has taught two graduate level social work courses at San Jose State University and created several clinical intern training and supervision programs. She obtained her Certificate from UC Berkeley’s Psychedelic Facilitation Certificate Program, as a member of the first cohort, as well as the MAPS MDMA training. Her other specialties include Internal Family Systems and EMDR certification. She is passionate about the transformative potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy to help people process trauma, overcome stagnation, and realign with their most authentic and empowered selves.

Michael Sasiain, PsyD, recently completed his certificate from the BCSP Psychedelic Facilitation Certificate Program as part of the second cohort. He identifies as a cis-gendered, Latinx male and is fluent in English and Spanish. Professionally, he considers himself a philosopher trained in clinical psychology and holds practice in the Psychiatry Department of a hospital where he serves as the clinical training director, team lead for a Latinx-focused program, and trauma and OCD specialist. Personally, he is interested in the intersection of spontaneous mystical experiences, psychedelic medicine, theories of selfhood, and the philosophy of consciousness.

Whitney Rose Pinger, CNM, MSN, FACNM, is a 4th generation Californian, whose soul emerged into the wild beauty of Stinson Beach and Marin County. She began studying to be a midwife in high school, graduated from UC Berkeley in 1983, and completed her midwifery training at Yale University in 1986. She has been a midwife for over 40 years. Her practice, WISDOM Midwifery, is founded on advocating for civil and human rights in pregnancy, labor, birth, and parenthood. She spent decades supporting thousands of pregnant and birthing people and their families to have natural pregnancies and childbirths utilizing evidence-based, innovative care, collaboration and midwifery magic.   Her strong advocacy for sovereignty infuses her teaching and clinical practice, and she is passionate about the education of the next generation of providers.  When Whitney left full-time clinical midwifery practice, she shifted her focus to midwifing consciousness.  She was a member of our first cohort in the BCSP Program and served as a fellow during the third cohort.