Dr. Gül Dölen is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, the Renee & U.S. Marine LCpl Bob Parsons Endowed Chair in Psychology, Psychedelics, and Neuroscience, a senior science advisor to BCSP and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. She also maintains an Adjunct Professorship in Neuroscience and Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. Dölen is the recipient of several prestigious awards including: the Joukowsky Family Foundation Outstanding Dissertation Award, the Conquer Fragile X Rising Star Award, the Angus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the Society for Social Neuroscience Early Career Award, the Searle Scholars Award, and the Johns Hopkins University President’s Frontier Award.

Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, founder and spiritual director of Ligmincha International,
is one of only a few masters of the Bön Dzogchen tradition presently living in the West. An
accomplished scholar in the Bön Buddhist textual traditions of philosophy, exegesis, and
debate, Tenzin Rinpoche completed a rigorous11-year course of traditional studies at the
Bönpo Monastic Center (Menri Monastery) in India, where he received his Geshe, degree. In
1992 Tenzin Rinpoche founded Ligmincha International in order to preserve and introduce
to the West the religious teachings and arts of the ancient Tibetan Bön Buddhist tradition.

Fluent in English, Rinpoche is known for his clear, lively, and insightful teaching style and
his ability to make Tibetan practices easily accessible to the Western student. He is a highly
respected and beloved teacher to students throughout the United States, Mexico, and
Europe. In addition to Ligmincha International’s affiliates in the United States, Rinpoche has
established centers in Central and South America, Europe and India.

Rinpoche is the author of 9 books: Wonders of the Natural Mind, in which he presents the view
and practice of the Bön Dzogchen teachings; and The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep; Healing
with Form, Energy, and Light: The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra, and Dzogchen;
Unbounded Wholeness; Tibetan Sound Healing; Tibetan Yogas of Body, Speech and Mind; Awakening the
Sacred Body; Awakening the Luminous Mind; The True Source of Healing, and Spontaneous Creativity.

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.

Sandor Iron Rope is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Oyate from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, whose work centers on Indigenous sacred medicine protection, cultural continuity, and ethical leadership within conversations surrounding psychedelic research and policy. He received his B.A. in Human Services and American Indian Studies from Black Hills State University.

Mr. Iron Rope supports Tribes and Native American Church communities throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, serving as President of the Native American Church of South Dakota and former Chair of the Native American Church of North America. His leadership emphasizes the protection of Indigenous ceremonial practices, sovereignty, intergenerational knowledge transfer, and the long-term conservation of peyote as a sacred medicine.

Through his work, Mr. Iron Rope advocates for Indigenous-led approaches to sacred medicines and contributes to broader discussions surrounding mental wellness, healing, conservation, and the evolving psychedelic landscape. His perspective calls for ethical collaboration rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems, respect for ceremonial responsibility, and the protection of sacred medicines for future generations.

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.

Belinda Eriacho is a wisdom carrier, advocate, and bridge builder. She is of Diné (Navajo) and A:shiwi (Zuni Pueblo) descent, whose maternal clan is Honágháahnii (One-Who-Walks-Around) and who is born for the Naasht’ezhi (Zuni Pueblo people). Her maternal grandparents are from the Dibé łizhini (Black Sheep) clan, and her paternal grandparents are from the Parrot and Bear clans. Her ancestral wisdom and traditions form the foundation of her life’s work. Rooted in the values of her lineages — resilience, reciprocity, and collective care — Belinda carries forward the responsibility of her communities with deep reverence and purpose.

Grounded in these lineages, her work bridges Indigenous wisdom and knowledge systems with contemporary conversations about consciousness, healing, and sacred medicines. Her professional focus includes Indigenous knowledge systems, Hózhó (harmony and balance), intergenerational trauma and healing, cultural humility, sacred medicines and psychedelic care, reciprocity, community-centered healing, and bridging Indigenous knowledge with Western science.

Her lived experiences with sacred medicines are unique and help bridge understanding of opportunities for collaboration between ancient cultural knowledge and modernity.

She is the founder of Kaalogii LLC, focused on traditional cultural teachings and inner healing, and consults with Western institutions and programs to bring alternative perspectives. She is an international voice on issues affecting Native American communities across the United States and shares worldviews that broaden perspectives on healing and access. Her writing bridges cultural understanding and innerstanding; the health and intergenerational trauma of Native peoples; the intersection of modern science and ancestral knowledge systems; and the evolving role of entheogenic and psychedelic medicines in healing. She advises on psychedelic-assisted therapy programs and advocates for policy that centers Indigenous voices.

Belinda holds degrees in Health Sciences, Public Health, and Technology. Her community work includes serving as a co-founding board member of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor, a multicultural spiritual community based in Phoenix, Arizona, and collaborating with tribal professionals on healing our communities. She has received training in MDMA-Assisted Therapy, EMDR, and Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAT).

She is a contributing author to several books and articles, including “Considerations for Working with Indigenous People in Psychedelic Spaces & Guidelines for Inclusion of Indigenous People in Psychedelic Science.

Belinda’s work uplifts Indigenous knowledge, strengthens cultural safety, and advances ethical, community-rooted healing pathways. As an educator, advocate, and bridge builder, Belinda works at the intersection of culture, health, and community empowerment.

Dr. Sylvestre Quevedo earned his undergraduate degree in biology with honors from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. Trained in family and community medicine, internal medicine, nephrology, and public policy, Dr. Quevedo has held academic and clinical leadership roles at Stanford University, UCSF, Duke University, and UC Berkeley. He has directed dialysis and integrative medicine programs at Stanford and UCSF and served as Osher Foundation Professor of Medicine at UCSF. His work spans global health, medical education reform, and healthcare analytics. Dr. Quevedo has advised health IT startups and was Chief Medical Officer of HealthQx, later acquired by McKesson. He has led and participated in FDA-approved clinical trials in psychedelic-assisted therapies and continues to direct research in this area at the Open Mind Collective in San Francisco.

Manvir Singh is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis and the author of Shamanism: The Timeless Religion (2025). He holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a PhD in human evolutionary biology from Harvard University. His research examines why human societies regularly develop strikingly similar complex cultural traditions, with a focus on music, myth, and shamanism. He has conducted long-term ethnographic research with Mentawai communities in Indonesia since 2014 and more recently has studied Indigenous psychedelic use in eastern Colombia. He is also a contributing writer to The New Yorker, where he covers history, evolution, and the human mind.

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.

Alison Gopnik is professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, and a member of the Berkeley AI Research Group. She received her BA from McGill University and her PhD. from Oxford University. She is a leader in cognitive science, particularly the study of learning and development. She was a founder of the field of “theory of mind”, an originator of the “theory theory” of cognitive development, and the first to apply Bayesian computational models to children’s learning. She has received the APS Lifetime Achievement Cattell and William James Awards, the SRCD Lifetime Achievement Award, the APA Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award, the Bradford Washburn and Carl Sagan Awards for Science Communication, and the Rumelhart Prize for Theoretical Foundations of Cognitive Science. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Cognitive Science Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Guggenheim Fellow. She was 2022-23 President of the Association for Psychological Science. She has six grandchildren.

She is the author of over 160 journal articles and several books including the bestselling and critically acclaimed popular books “The Scientist in the Crib” 1999, “The Philosophical Baby” 2009, and “The Gardener and the Carpenter” 2016.  She has written widely about cognitive science and psychology for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, and The Atlantic, among others. Her TED talk has been viewed more than 5.7 million times. She has frequently appeared on TV, radio and podcasts including “The Colbert Report” and “The Ezra Klein Show”.

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. J. Kim Penberthy is the Chester F. Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Dr. Penberthy is a licensed board-certified clinical psychologist and distinguished clinician, educator, and researcher. Her work resides at the intersection of clinical psychology, contemplative science, and spiritually transformative experiences. A longstanding faculty member at UVA’s Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), her research explores the therapeutic implications of extraordinary human experiences, including near-death and after-death communications, as well as the clinical application of altered states of consciousness. Dr. Penberthy is currently leading a groundbreaking clinical trial investigating the use of psilocybin therapy for individuals suffering from prolonged grief disorder. Her work integrates rigorous scientific inquiry with a deep commitment to human flourishing, and she is widely recognized for advancing the understanding of consciousness, healing, and meaning making in clinical settings. 

Fire Erowid and Earth Erowid are the co-founders of Erowid Center, an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that collects, reviews, and publishes data about psychoactive plants, drugs, technologies, and practices. They operate an online drug information library (Erowid.org), oversee the digital archiving of psychedelic history including the Shulgin Archive, Tim Scully Underground LSD Manufacturing History Project, and Stolaroff Collection, and direct a public lab-based drug checking service (DrugsData.org). Together they have spoken at a diverse array of conferences, have co-authored 21 peer-reviewed journal articles, and built a public archive of over 45,000 first-person experience reports of psychoactive drug use.

Kalina Christoff Hadjiilieva is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. Prof. Christoff Hadjiilieva is an expert on the cognitive neuroscience of human thought, from spontaneous thought phenomena such as mind-wandering, daydreaming, and creativity; to goal-directed thought, including deliberate reasoning and problem-solving; to clinical alterations in thought and their implications for human wellbeing. Their work also examines the neurocognitive mechanism of introspection, meta-cognition, meditation, and different forms of self-experience and self-regulation. Prof. Christoff Hadjiilieva’s research seeks to understand these mental phenomena through the dynamic interplay between large-scale brain systems, including the default, salience, and frontoparietal control networks.

The Magik*Magik Orchestra (M*MO) is a made-to-order orchestra for artists and creatives with a mission is to attract new users to the orchestral experience. Founded and organized by composer Minna Choi, M*MO debuted at Herbst Theater in 2008 performing Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver to critical acclaim and a sold out house. 

Since then, M*MO has collaborated with over 150 artists and cultural institutions on an international level almost entirely by word of mouth. Ranging in size from a single violinist to a 80-piece orchestra and choir, M*MO has cast orchestral players and arrangers into hundreds of creative endeavors, including a 5-week North American tour and with Death Cab for Cutie; live performances with Chicago, Sting, Thao, Nick Cave, Third Eye Blind and Weezer; recording the score for the major motion pictures Looper, Kill the Messenger and Young Ones; summer camps for more than 700 Children at the Stern Grove Festival; an original children’s book soundtrack for McSweeney’s; numerous recordings with The Dodos, John Vanderslice, and composer Nathaniel Stookey; several sold-out shows with The Walkmen and Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers; and numerous others. M*MO has performed at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, accompanied performances by the ODC/Dance Company alongside cellist Zoë Keating, and performed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of an exhibition on Italian Futurists. 

Started with just $5000 starting capital in 2008, M*MO has earned and distributed over 2 million dollars to local orchestral musicians to date. M*MO is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabrice Guerrier is a fine artist, writer, and futurist whose life and practice are driven by a fundamental conviction: that imagination is the greatest force and power we have to access. Guerrier earned a Bachelor of Science in International Relations at Florida State University, followed by a Master’s degree in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding from Eastern Mennonite University. His background includes working within key global and civic institutions—including the U.S. State Department, PEN America, and the United Nations, as well as serving as the youngest president of Coming to the Table, a national racial reconciliation organization in the U.S. This trajectory informs his wide-ranging global vision, nuanced perspective on systemic and cultural change, and deep commitment to human imagination. 

Today based in Los Angeles, Guerrier’s multidisciplinary practice bridges fine art painting, drawing, literature, and speculative worldbuilding. Rooted in Afrofuturism, Haitian history, and Vodou cosmology, his work today actively investigates cultural revolution, societal decay, personal agency, and spiritual transformation. The author of over ten books, Guerrier writes regularly on Substack at Notes on Imagining the Future, has taught at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, and lectures widely across academic and cultural institutions. 

Over the last decade, he has built hundreds of imaginary, shared worlds through cross-national collaborations with authors, global experts, futurists, visual artists, and science fiction visionaries. Guerrier has been recognized on both the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and The Root 100 list of the most influential African Americans in the United States. In 2025, he was named “Alumnus of the Year” by Eastern Mennonite University. He is fluent in French and Haitian Kreyòl.

Hillary Brenhouse is the founding editor-in-chief and publisher of Elastic, the magazine of psychedelic art and literature, which debuted in April 2025. She was previously the editor-in-chief of Guernica magazine and the editorial director of Bold Type Books. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.

Bryan is a pioneering voice in psychedelic science, dedicated to advancing research, public education, and community wellbeing. With experience spanning harm reduction, testing, ethics, innovation, and policy reform, he champions evidence-based progress and safe, equitable access within the psychedelic space.

 As a co-founder of Oakland Hyphae — the first industry-recognized psychedelic testing lab — Bryan has worked to empower informed decisions, challenge misinformation, and advocate for non-discriminatory standards in testing and psychedelic services. His work continues to push for a future where psychedelic science is accountable, truthful, and rooted in care for the communities it serves.

Shayla Love is a science journalist based in Brooklyn who writes about science, health, and the mind. She is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, along with other magazines, and has a master’s degree from Columbia University. She was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic, Vice, Psyche, and The Guardian. She received the Carter Journalism Institute’s Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award in 2024 and the Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship in 2022. 

Dr. J. Christian Greer is a lecturer at Stanford University School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, and an affiliate professor at the Graduate Theological Union. As a scholar of Religious Studies with a focus on psychedelic cultures across space and time, he has held teaching positions at Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Amsterdam. He is the co-founder and the co-chair of the Drugs and Religion program unit at the American Academy of Religion, and each June, he leads “The Psychedelic Universe: Global Perspectives on Higher Consciousness,” an intensive, 2-week seminar on the history of psychedelics, hosted on-location at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. His forthcoming book, Crimes Against Normality: Psychedelic Militancy in the Fanzine Revolution (Oxford University Press), explores the expansion and diversification of psychedelic networks in the underground cultures of the 1980s.

Alia Lilienstein, MD, MPH, is a board-certified Family Medicine physician with over a decade of experience in psychedelic research and therapy. She is a Research Physician at BCSP and previously served as clinical lead for Lykos Therapeutics’s pivotal Phase 3 trials and 2024 FDA New Drug Application for MDMA-assisted therapy. She holds an MPH from UC Berkeley, an MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and a certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and Research from CIIS.

Tomás Garrett is an Analytical Chemist with an MBA bent on making complex science easier to grasp. As
the Founder of “The Myco Zine” and an inaugural member of the Hyphae Team, mushroom science and
education has always been the mission.

With years of experience as a chromatographic chemist in the food and drug industry, Tomás moved to
CA in 2018 to join the cannabis industry testing for Pesticides, Mycotoxins, and Residual Solvents. When
Tomás and Ian (CoFounder of Hyphae Labs) went to a Decriminalize Nature event in 2019 to discuss
mushroom testing, they met Reggie (Founder Oakland Hyphae). Since, he has helped grow Hyphae Labs
and develop the methodology used in the Hyphae Cup!

His current project “The Myco Zine” is a zine (Mini-Magazine) that features foragers, artisans,
cultivators, and educators in the mycology space. With a goal of learning from the mycelium, The Myco
Zine has taken a grassroots approach that is turning rhizomorphic! By developing a Mycelium, or
network, of people and organizations contributing to the culture, The Myco Zine intends to function as
spores that amplifies the collective work.

Elysa Fenenbock has spent 17 years designing experiences that change people, and the last several building a field that barely exists yet: design for psychedelic medicine.

She founded the School of Psychedelic Design and created the Psychedelic Medicine x Design course at the Stanford d.school, now in its fifth year. Before that she designed at IDEO, served as Google’s first Designer in Residence, and worked with the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley on purpose and life transitions. Her through line is set and setting as a design problem: how we shape a space shapes what becomes possible inside it.

That work reaches all the way to the edges of a life. She designs for grief and for the hard passages we’re never taught to hold, treating creativity as medicine and death as one more threshold worth designing with care.

Psychedelics expand consciousness. Design expands possibility.

Jane C. Hu is head writer of The Microdose, a newsletter about the science, business, culture and public policy surrounding psychedelics. She is an award-winning journalist whose work has been featured in publications like Undark Magazine, Slate, The Guardian, High Country News, WIRED, The Washington Post, Smithsonian, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and Science. Before becoming a journalist, she earned a PhD in psychology from UC Berkeley.

Dani K. Silva is a UC Berkeley Sociology student minoring in Digital Humanities & Global Poverty and Practice. She is a community-engaged scholar and policy advocate whose work spans higher education, state and federal advocacy, Indigenous knowledge systems, incarceration and reentry, and institutional transformation. Before transferring to Berkeley, Dani played a significant role in developing Mt. San Antonio College’s First Peoples Native Center and strengthening institutional support and visibility for Native students. She has continued to engage in Indigenous-centered scholarship and community work through UCLA’s BRAID initiative and the development of citywide Native American Heritage Month programming, including plant medicine, water education, and water protector engagement.

These experiences are shaping Dani’s emerging research on Indigenous knowledge, plant medicine, sovereignty, and relational accountability. As a Collective Continuance Fellow, she is exploring how institutions engage community-held and ancestral knowledge while developing research practices grounded in reciprocity, community authority, cultural responsibility, and relationships among healing, land, water, culture, and collective well-being.

Makenzie (Kenz) Wilkinson is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Department at UC Berkeley. She received her BS in Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, where she also obtained postbaccalaureate training as a PREP scholar in the lab of Dr. Gul Dolen. Kenz has continued on in the Dolen lab for her doctoral research, which explores critical periods, psychedelics, and the social brain. Her thesis centers around the idea that psychedelics reopen critical periods of development to reinstate juvenile plasticity in adult brains, and that the context during a psychedelic trip directs which critical period reopens. Through the Collective Continuance Fellowship, she hopes to gain perspective about how to engage with Indigenous knowledge systems in her bench-style research, and how to incorporate ethical and community-centered research practices into her career and beyond as she navigates the contemporary psychedelic space.

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.

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.

Jim Colgan is a designer of live events, experiences, and audio who has spent his career creating conditions for meaningful encounters. He has worked as an editorial director and interactive programmer for The New York Times, including The Times’ Climate Forward events, as well as producing for a wide range of media and social impact organizations. He was a John S. Knight journalism fellow, and his career has spanned public radio, live events, and podcasting. His work has been recognized with a Peabody award and by the Online News Association. He has also trained in experiential facilitation practices.

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.

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.

Sean Noah, PhD, is an assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cal Poly. As a BCSP affiliate researcher, 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 psychedelics’ mechanisms of action and gain insight into the relationships between the brain and conscious perception. He’s excited about the use of psychedelics as basic research tools in cognitive neuroscience, complementing their promising therapeutic potential in clinical settings.

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.

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.

Andrea Venezia brings 30 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.