States of Consciousness:
Psychedelic Discovery
and the Edge of Uncertainty

Maya Acharya (they/any) is the program coordinator at the BCSP, working on transformative community events. Maya is a music maker, an educator, a program manager, and a huge advocate of rest. In their previous role at Stanford University’s Queer Student Resources, Maya focused on building community wellness and resilience through a combination of direct student supervision, program development, and relationship-building across and beyond the institution. They also have experience in justice-oriented cultural work at Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts, at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and in community.

Kuranda Morgan is the strategy director at the BCSP, where she previously served as a Civic Science Fellow. She weaves the center’s diverse initiatives into a cohesive engine for social change, helping bridge the gap between scientific discovery and societal impact. She has a decade of experience leading impactful and inclusive programs at the nexus of research, innovation, policy, and social change. With a passion for facilitating learning and systems transformation, her work focuses on strengthening capabilities for evidence use, research translation, and knowledge exchange. At Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good, she worked closely with UK government bodies, universities, and knowledge intermediaries to improve their ability to collaborate, innovate, and evidence their work. Previously, she cultivated global research networks that championed regional leadership in rigorous, policy-relevant research. She holds an MSc in Social Policy Research from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in social welfare and American studies from UC Berkeley. In her spare time, Morgan enjoys dabbling in various creative outlets, going to gigs, playing outside, and finding awe in the mundane.

Andrea Venezia brings 25 years of equity-focused research and policy experience to her role as executive director. Prior to joining the BCSP, she was a professor of Public Policy and Administration, and led the Education Insights Center, at California State University (CSU), Sacramento. Andrea is integrating equity-driven leadership across BCSP’s work, fostering inclusive partnerships, solidifying the BCSP’s vision and values, and strengthening community connections. She is also committed to bridging the gap between psychedelic research and society, ensuring the center’s work has meaningful impact.

Andrea’s scholarship focused on equitable access to and through postsecondary education, encompassing reforms at the high school, community college, and university levels. She co-led the conceptualization and development of the California Education Policy Fellowship Program and the CSU Student Success Network and has authored and coauthored numerous publications, including Supporting the College Dream (2015) by Corwin Press and From High School to College (2004) by Jossey-Bass.    

Michael Silver is a professor in the School of Optometry and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley, and is the director of BCSP. Research in the Silver laboratory focuses on the brain mechanisms of visual perception, attention, and learning. His team seeks to better understand how the brain actively constructs representations of the visual environment by using a combination of perceptual, brain imaging, computational modeling, and pharmacological techniques. Although Michael has been conducting pharmacological studies in humans for fifteen years, the initial studies as part of BCSP will be the first in his lab to involve psychedelic compounds. Following decades of suppression of research on the effects of psychedelic drugs in human subjects, he is thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to the renaissance of psychedelic research and to conduct experiments that shine light on the mysteries of the mind and brain.

Marlena Robbins is a Doctor of Public Health candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Program Coordinator for the Collective Continuance Fellowship (CCF). Her research examines multigenerational perspectives on psilocybin mushrooms in urban Native communities and the development of the CCF as a model for ethical engagement in psychedelic research. Drawing on implementation science, Indigenous methodologies and public health prevention theory, she studies how research design, governance and training structures can shape the future of psychedelic science. She has contributed to tribal engagement strategies for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and served on the Colorado Natural Medicine Tribal Working Group.

Jen Holmberg is a neuroscience PhD student co-advised by Michael Silver and Jack Gallant at UC Berkeley. Their research uses fMRI, naturalistic movies and computational modeling to investigate the effects of psilocybin on visual and semantic brain representations during the acute drug experience.

Tyler Toueg is a neuroscience PhD student at UC Berkeley, co-advised by Bill Jagust and Michael Silver. In the Psychedelic Longitudinal Aging Study In Cognitively Healthy Older Adults (PLASTICITY), he is investigating the impact of a single dose of psilocybin on structural plasticity and psychological well-being.

Sean Noah, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher in Michael Silver’s laboratory at UC Berkeley. He received his    PhD at UC Davis, studying the neural mechanisms of visual attention and visual awareness. At    BCSP, he uses neuroimaging and psychophysical methods to link psychedelics’ neurobiological effects    in the human visual system to their profound perceptual activity. He aims to better understand&nbs &nb; psp;psychedelics’ mechanisms of action and gain insight into the relationships between the&n  bsp; brain and conscious perception. He’s excited about the potential of psychedelics as research tools in cognitive neuroscience and hopes to demonstrate that they can be used safely in basic research with healthy volunteers, complementing their promising therapeutic potential in clinical settings.    

Cassandra Vieten is Clinical Professor and Director of the Center for Mindfulness at the Centers for Integrative Health in the Department of Family Medicine at UC San Diego. She is also Director of Research at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination and Clinical Psychology Director at the Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative at UCSD. She is Senior Advisor of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation where she served as Executive Director from 2019-2023, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where she served as President from 2013-2019.

David Presti has taught neurobiology and psychology at UC Berkeley for over 35 years, with the history, psychological value, and known neurobiology of psychedelics as important parts of his instructional curriculum. He has also worked to shift educational dialogue and public policy related to psychedelics. For more than a decade he worked in the clinical treatment of addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. He also teaches neuroscience and converses about science with Buddhist monastics in India, Bhutan, and Nepal. David sees BCSP as poised to contribute innovative investigations related to psychedelics as probes of the nature of mind and to explore the nexus between physical science and spirituality.

Dr. Boris Heifets is a neuroanesthesiologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University. He directs both clinical and basic neuroscience research programs, bridging neuroscience, psychiatry and anesthesiology. His research is focused on deconstructing the neural mechanisms involved in an emerging class of rapid-acting psychiatric therapies, like ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin and propofol. His group’s work is leading to new insights into the therapeutic potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness.