Presenters

Matthew Baggott, PhD, is a data scientist and neuroscientist who has pioneered clinical psychedelic research since the 1990s. Matthew is interested in how transformative psychedelic experiences, especially those with MDMA and other entactogens, can be made safer, more effective, and more available. In the late 90s, he was part of the first team to receive federal funding to administer MDMA to healthy volunteers. He also acted as one of the first scientific advisors for DanceSafe when they formed in 1998. Matthew went on to assist MAPS in obtaining regulatory approval for their first MDMA study in patients. He has since then conducted laboratory studies in healthy volunteers with MDMA and MDA, attempting to understand both their risks and their therapeutic potential. Currently an independent researcher and consultant to machine learning and biotech companies, he was most recently a Director of Data Science & Engineering at Genentech.

Raquel Bennett, Psy.D. is a psychologist and ketamine specialist from Berkeley, CA. She primarily works with people who are living with severe depression, bipolar disorder, and/or suicidal ideation. She is fascinated by the antidepressant properties of ketamine, and has been studying this since 2002. She also has a long-standing interest in the psychedelic and mystical properties of ketamine, and the potential for this medicine to be used for spiritual exploration. Dr. Bennett is the founder of KRIYA Institute and the organizer of KRIYA Conference, which is an annual and international event devoted to the uses of ketamine in psychiatry and psychotherapy. You can learn more about her work at www.kriyainstitute.com

Françoise Bourzat holds a MA in Somatic Psychology from New College of California (San Francisco, 1990). She is a certified Hakomi Therapist (1991). She is an adjunct faculty in the East West Psychology Program at CIIS. Since 1987, Francoise has apprenticed with shamans and healers in the U.S. and Mexico. In the last 20 years, she has traveled with groups to Mexico, incorporating her counseling practice experience with her knowledge of expanded states of consciousness where she partners with Mazatec healers in Sacred Mushrooms ceremonies. She lectures internationally and she leads trainings in the U.S, France, Lebanon and Israel. Her book Consciousness Medicine (North Atlantic Books) showcases her decade long knowledge which bridges indigenous practices and Western psychology.

Kate Browning is a former midwife and a Registered Nurse, psychotherapist, Integrative Energy Healer, and doctoral candidate in clinical psychology. She has worked in a variety of health care and educational settings for over 20 years as a clinician, clinical supervisor, consultant, educator, and lecturer and is now the coordinator of Langara College’s Integrative Energy Healing program. Her areas of specialization in teaching include professional practice and ethics, therapeutic communication, and relational practice.

Devon Christie, MD, CCFP, RTC, is a medical doctor and registered clinical counsellor practicing in chronic pain, and Clinical Instructor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. She is also certified in Functional Medicine, Relational Somatic Therapy, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and Kundalini Yoga. Her quest to discover methods to assist in alleviating human suffering has led to her interest in psychedelic psychotherapy research. Devon has trained with MAPS to deliver MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a research setting.

Neşe Devenot is the Medicine, Society & Culture Postdoctoral Scholar in Bioethics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, she received her PhD in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Her current project, Chemical Poetics: The Literary History of Psychedelic Science, explores the function of metaphor and other literary devices in narrative accounts of psychedelic experience. She was a 2015-16 Research Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Timothy Leary Papers and a Research Fellow with the New York University Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study, where she participated in the first qualitative study of patient experiences, and she received the award for Best Humanities Publication in Psychedelic Studies from Breaking Convention in 2017.

Claudia J. Ford, PhD, has had a career in international development and women’s health spanning three decades and all continents. Claudia is a midwife and ethnobotanist, who studies traditional ecological knowledge, women’s reproductive health, and sustainable agriculture. Dr. Ford is on faculty at State University of New York, Potsdam, where she teaches Environmental Studies, Sustainability, Ethnobotany, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Environmental Literature, and Environmental Justice. Claudia serves onthe boards of The Biodynamic Association, promoting spiritual agriculture and a sacred relationship with land; and the Soul Fire Farm Institute, committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system. Claudia is also a writer, poet, and visual artist; and a single mother who has shared the delights and adventures of her global travel with her four children.

Sam Gandy has a PhD in ecological science from the University of Aberdeen and an MRes in entomology from Imperial College London. He has a lifelong interest in nature and wildlife and has been fortunate enough to conduct field research in various parts of the world including the UK, Kefalonia, Almeria, Texas, the Peruvian Amazon, Vietnam and Ethiopia. He also has experience of working in the psychedelic field, as past scientific assistant to the director of the Beckley Foundation, and currently as a collaborator with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. Sam has a particular research interest in the intersection of two of his big passions…nature and psychedelics…and the potential of psychedelics to reconnect our increasingly disconnected species to the natural world, for the betterment of humanity and the biosphere at large.

Duncan Grady’s professional experience includes over 20 years of post secondary education and 36 years of psychotherapy in addictions, trauma, death and dying. He has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology and a Doctorate of Ministry. He is an elder of the Circle of Indigenous Nations Society, West Kootenays, BC. He currently co-leads retreats, works with communities impacted by lateral violence and provides training and consultation using western and non-western approaches to health, well-being, spirituality, trauma, dying and death. During the past year he has gone to communities in BC and Alberta to assist health care teams experiencing the overwhelm of working with suicide, fentanyl overdose and death. This work has primarily been with care providers who provide services, but has also included community presentations as well.

Brigitte Grof, is a Dipl. Psychologist, licensed psychotherapist, and artist with over 30 years of experience in Holotropic Breathwork and Holotropic States of Consciousness. In 1986 she trained at the Esalen Institute in California and was certified in the first training groups in USA and Switzerland. Since the beginning of the Grof Transpersonal Training (GTT), she has been teaching training modules in USA, France, and in Germany (with Dr. Sylvester Walch) and leading a 3-year Holotropic Breathwork training group with Dr. Ingo Jahrsetz. Since 2004, she has developed and taught her own method of Individual therapy combining breathing and bodywork based on holotropic principles. Currently she works in her private practice in Wiesbaden, Germany, and offers Holotropic Breathwork workshops and retreats. Brigitte’s artwork is inspired by her own experiences of non-ordinary states of consciousness and by shamanic art of native cultures. In 2017, her book The True King, a spiritual fairy tale with her narrative and illustrations, was published in English. In the last few years, Brigitte, together with her husband Stan Grof, conducted Holotropic Breathwork workshops and seminars in China, Chile, Ecuador, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Argentina and Peru, and USA including at the Esalen Institute in California.

Stanislav Grof, MD, is a psychiatrist with more than sixty years of experience in research of holotropic states of consciousness, a large and important subgroup of non-ordinary states that have healing, transformative, heuristic, and evolutionary potential. In the past, he was Principal Investigator in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Currently, he is Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, CA. A winner of prestigious awards, Stan has written over 150 published articles in professional journals, as well as many well-known books in the field including <em>LSD Psychotherapy Psychology of the Future When the Impossible Happen and Spiritual Emergency (which he co-authored with the late Christina Grof). Since April 2016, Stan has been happily married to Brigitte Grof. They live together in Germany and California and travel the inner and outer worlds in tandem, conducting seminars, training, and Holotropic Breathwork workshops worldwide. In August 2019 his life’s work encyclopedia The Way of the Psychonaut was published and the documentary film about his life and work “The Way of the Psychonaut: Stanislav’s Journey of Consciousness” is being released this year.

Jeffrey Guss, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
NYU School of Medicine

Jeffrey Guss, MD is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher with specializations in psychoanalytic therapy, addictions and psychedelic therapy. He was Co-Principal Investigator and Director of Psychedelic Therapy Training for the NYU School of Medicine’s study on psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of cancer related existential distress, which was published in Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2016. He currently is a study therapist in the NYU study on Psilocybin-Assisted treatment of Major Depressive Disorder, a collaborator with Yale University’s study on psilocybin-assisted therapy for Major Depressive Disorder and a study therapist with the MAPS study on treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy.

Jeff is interested in the integration of psychedelic therapies with contemporary psychoanalytic theory and has published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality and Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. He co-authored a paper on the influence of therapists’ first hand experience with psychedelics on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy research in The Journal of Psychedelic Studies. He is an Instructor and Mentor with the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Center for Psychedelic Therapies.

He maintains a private practice in New York City.

Shelby Hartman, MA, is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of DoubleBlind, a biannual print magazine and digital media company at the forefront of the rapidly growing psychedelic movement. Also a reporter and editor specializing in psychedelics, cannabis, drug policy, and mental health, her work has appeared in VICE, Quartz, the Huffington Post, and Rolling Stone, among others. Hartman worked in broadcast news production for CBS News, covering presidential elections, protests, natural disasters, and other breaking news. Spurred by a passion for print and investigative reporting, she transitioned to magazine writing, working as an editor at Pasadena Magazine and receiving her Master’s Degree in long-form journalism from Columbia University in 2015. Since, Hartman has worked as a columnist at LA Weekly and an editor at Herb, the largest cannabis media company, with extensive features on the cannabis industry, the psychedelic research boom, the popularization of ayahuasca, and post-traumatic stress disorder in the veteran community.

Pamela Kryskow MD is a clinical instructor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.  Specializing in alleviating the complex modality of pain, she successfully synthesizes her training in family, rural, emergency, pain, counselling and functional medicine.  Dr. Kryskow’s wealth of experience in conventional medicine augmented by her deep knowledge on the safe use of MDMA, psilocybin and other psychedelics, places her at the forefront of this new, rapidly emerging paradigm. Her specialized interest and research in the applicability of microdosing has proven formulative in this growing practice.

Andrea Langlois is the director of engagement at the International Centre for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service (ICEERS). Andrea is passionate about dialogue, community engagement, Indigenous rights, Amazonian conservation, and plant medicine. In her role at ICEERS she co-organized the 2019 World Ayahuasca Conference and is co-lead of the Iboga/ine Community Engagement Initiative. She holds a Master’s Degree in Media Studies from Concordia University in Montreal and a BA in Women’s Studies from the University of Victoria. Prior to joining ICEERS, Andrea worked for over a decade in the harm reduction, drug policy, and HIV/AIDS sector and published two books on alternative media. She was the recipient of a 2019 Cosmic Sister Emerging Voices Award.

Anja Loizaga-Velder is a German-Mexican clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, with humanistic and transpersonal orientation. Paralell to her psychotherapeutic practice Anja has been collaborating with indigenous healers and investigating the therapeutic potential of the ritual use of psychedelic plants for over 25 years.

She earned a doctoral degree in Medical Psychology from Heidelberg University in Germany with a dissertation on the topic: The therapeutic uses of ayahuasca in addiction treatment and has published several research articles and book chapters that explore the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca and other psychedelics for the treatment of mental health challenges. She is founding member and director of research and psychotherapy at the Nierika Institute for Intercultural Medicine, in Mexico, a NGO dedicated to the investigation and preservation of indigenous traditions with sacred plant medicines and their therapeutic applications in the treatment of mental health challenges.

Anja also is adjunct profesor and researcher in Humanities in Health at the Medical School at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where she works towards implementing clinical research into evaluating the therapeutic efficacy of sacred plants in intercultural therapeutic settings.

Helen Loshny, MA is a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor based in Vancouver BC providing psychospiritual, family systems and psychedelic preparation and integration counselling and coaching services. Helen is also the co-founder of Empower Health Clinic, a multidisciplinary integrated health clinic founded on the principles of creating transformational change on the personal, business and community levels.  The vision for creating spaces and offering services in transformational healing was borne out of a long history of psychospiritual practice and training as well as visionary medicine work with teachers, mentors and peers over the last few decades.  Helen is also a founding Board member and co-leader of the Ethics Working Group with the Canadian Psychedelic Association.

Britta Love is a writer, activist and healer currently completing a research-based memoir about healing and awakening through conscious sexual practice and psychedelic ritual, based on her Consciousness Studies thesis completed at Goddard College. She became an advocate for sex worker’s rights as an undergraduate at the London School of Economics in 2007 and has been a writer and activist pushing for the decriminalization of drugs and sex work ever since. Britta has been certified as a somatic sex educator at the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education, has trained with Betty Martin’s School of Consent and recently became a certified circle keeper with the Planning Change Restorative Justice Certification Program under the tutelage of Kay Pranis.

Britta has spoken at the Psymposia Conference at Amherst College, Breaking Convention at the University of Greenwich, and Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics as well as presented or facilitated workshops at the New School, the Assemblage, Caveat, Tarot Society, the Gratitude Festival, Catland Books and the Alchemist’s Kitchen in New York City. Her writing has been featured on Medium, Alternet, The Raw Story, Reality Sandwich, and Chacruna and she has been interviewed for WGDR as well as podcasts like Psychedelics Today.

Follow her at www.BrittaLoved.com or on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter at @brittaloved.

Geraldine Manson’s role as a Vancouver Island University (VIU) Elder-in-Residence is working directly with students and Faculty/professors in Health & Human Services programs sharing her traditional knowledge and its similarities this knowledge relates to programs offered. This knowledge she holds came from many years of learning from Snuneymuxw Elders over time. She was mentored by elders who held different teachings such as Dr. Ellen White who shared the meaning of medicinal plants and their uses. Geraldine has been with Vancouver Island University since 2008.

Madison Margolin, MS, is the co-founder and managing editor of DoubleBlind, a biannual print magazine and digital media company at the forefront of the rapidly growing psychedelic movement. Also a Los Angeles/New York-based journalist, Margolin covers psychedelics, cannabis, drug policy, and spirituality. She’s written for Playboy Magazine, Rolling Stone, Nylon, VICE, LA Weekly, High Times, Tablet, and others. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School and UC Berkeley, Margolin has traveled everywhere from pot farms in the Emerald Triangle to the shores of the Ganges River, and all over Israel-Palestine, exploring the role of plant medicine in religion, mental health, and conflict resolution. She got her start in journalism with a column on cannabis at the Village Voice, after having lived in south Tel Aviv working with Eritrean refugees. With more than 4 years of experience covering cannabis and other drugs, Madison has spoken on topics like social equity, cannabis feminism, cannabis journalism, and so forth at conferences like Digital Hollywood, the Association of Alternative New Media, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, The Rind’s Women in Cannabis, Pepperdine’s Cannabis Law Symposium, and more.

Susan McBride, RN BA MTS RSW, worked as an emergency room RN dealing with physical and emotional crises. She obtained a B.A. in Psychology and worked at a children’s mental health agency helping parents deal with crisis situations with their children. An interest in spirituality led her to complete a Masters in Theological Studies. She has been working in private practice since 2002 using Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, Imago Relationship therapy and, along with her partner, Mark Cornfield, psychiatrist, running Imago weekend workshops for couples.

Susan certified with GTT as a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator in 2005 and has continued to facilitate monthly HB workshops. Recently, Susan and Mark have been involved in using Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy for individuals as well as couples and have been facilitating Ketamine Learning Experiences for psychotherapists and physicians.

Julia Menard, M.Ed., Cert. Con.Res., is a mediator, certified coach & co-founder of the On Conflict Leadership Institute & the OnConflictPodcast. She has worked with conflict in communities and organizations for over 25 years. She is the former co-director of a Victim-Offender program and helped shepherd a book on Restorative Justice. Julia teaches at the Justice Institute of BC, both at their Centre for Conflict Resolution and their Centre for Leadership. She co-authored a book with therapist Judy Zehr on self-regulation in conflict and is committed to conflict as a path of consciousness development and community healing. You can find her at www.juliamenard.com

Trevor Millar is a social entrepreneur and owner of Liberty Root Therapy Ltd., a business dedicated to healing and transformation using the anti-addictive plant medicine ibogaine and other psychedelic compounds. Trevor currently serves as Board Chair for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Canada and is a former Executive Director of the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance. Featured in the award-winning documentary about using magic mushrooms and Iboga to heal addiction, anxiety and depression called DOSED , he is also a founding member of the newly formed Canadian Psychedelic Association.

Eleonora Molnar, MA, is a psychotherapist, health care systems planner, and an independent researcher with interests in public and primary health, drug policy reform, and consciousness research. She studies ethical considerations and therapeutic approaches related to non-ordinary states of consciousness and healing. She currently maintains a private counselling practice and does independent consulting. Eleonora is the Executive Director of the Women’s Visionary Congress in Canada.

Carmen Ostrander MA, is a community centred therapist and supervisor with a low barrier independent practice (currently based in Vancouver). Working in service of artists, support workers and gender diverse communities, her relational and collaborative approach draws from a long history of engagement with arts based practice and transpersonal art therapy, which welcomes non-ordinary states of consciousness as catalysts for growth and insight. Additional training in Narrative Therapy (MA) situates her work in the social, cultural and political context each client brings to the relationship. As a queer Australian woman from a non-English speaking background, she brings a sensitive yet secular approach to substance assisted therapies, that sits squarely in the relational space between clinical and spiritual frameworks. Her approach centres skill development, cognitive liberty and creative liberatory practices to encourage connection and autonomy.

Torsten Passie MD, PhD is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Hannover Medical School (Germany) and Visiting Scientist at Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main (Germany).

He studied philosophy, sociology (MA) at Leibniz-University, Hannover and medicine at Hannover Medical School. He worked at the Psychiatric University Clinic in Zürich (Switzerland) and with Professor Hanscarl Leuner (Göttingen), the leading European authority on hallucinogens and psycholytic therapy.

From 1998 to 2010 he was a scientist and psychiatrist at Hannover Medical school (Germany) where he researched the addictions and the psychophysiology of altered states of consciousness and their healing potential, including clinical research with hallucinogenic drugs. He is a board member of the Swiss Physicians Society for Psycholytic Therapy and was Visiting Professor at the Harvard Medical School in Boston d uring the years 2012-2015 . He is a therapist in the Phase 3 studies for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in Europe. More than 50 of his Publications have appeared in high-ranking scientific journals. His books include The Pharmacology of LSD (2010), Healing with Entactogens (2012) and The Science of Microdosing Psychedelics (2019).

Jazmin Pirozek, MSc, is of Kinosao Sipi, Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba and lives in Kenora, Ontario. She is a student of Maestro Juan Flores, a Plant Medicine Teacher of the Peruvian Amazon. Jazmin has received her master’s degree in Biology, focussing on Boreal Forest Ethnobotany, as well, she is a graduate of Boreal Forest Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology. Jazmin has travelled across Canada to share her knowledge, as well as to the United Kingdom to present at Breaking Convention 2019. She assisted in writing Science North’s Planetarium film “Under the Same Stars: Minwaadiziwin” including narration and singing for the piece. Jazmin shares her knowledge of Boreal forest medicines, continually working with the Indigenous people of Northern Ontario. Currently, Jazmin works as a consultant with a Tribal council and a Community Organization teaching knowledge that promotes well-being, healing and self-knowing.

Jordan Sloshower, MD, MSc is a psychiatrist and research fellow at Yale University. His research and clinical interests focus on therapeutic applications of psychedelic substances and in particular, how psychedelics can be combined optimally with psychotherapy to treat a variety of conditions. Dr. Sloshower is a co-founder of the Yale Psychedelic Science Group and is currently an investigator and therapist in two clinical trials of psilocybin-assisted therapy for major depressive disorder. His perspective is informed by prior training in medical anthropology and global health, and deep interests in ethnobotany, Buddhist philosophy, yoga, meditation, and integrative approaches to wellness.

Paul Stamets, speaker, author, mycologist, medical researcher and entrepreneur, is considered an intellectual and industry leader in fungi: habitat, medicinal use, and production. He lectures extensively to deepen the understanding and respect for the organisms that literally exist under every footstep taken on this path of life.

Paul is the author of six books (including Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms, and Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World), he has discovered and named numerous new species of psilocybin mushrooms. Paul has been awarded more than 40 patents with several patent applications in queue for unexpected activity of psilocybin analogues stacked with other substances.

He has received numerous awards, including: Invention Ambassador (2014-2015) for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Mycologist Award (2014) from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA), and the Gordon & Tina Wasson Award (2015) from the Mycological Society of America (MSA). Paul’s extensive work in the field of mycology has earned him an official induction into The Explorers Club (2020).

His work has entered into the mainstream of popular culture. In the new Star Trek: Discovery series on CBS, the Science Officer is portrayed by an Astromycologist…. a Lt. Paul Stamets. Paul’s work with mycelium is a central theme of this series.

Rae St. Arnault, ND, is a Naturopathic Physician practicing in Vancouver, BC, and is the co-founder of Empower Health Clinic, a multidisciplinary health clinic founded on the principles of creating transformational change on the personal, business and community levels. The vision for creating a space for transformational healing came after several years of being part of the Vancouver psychedelic community and supporting people with integration services through the Jubilant People network. Dr. Rae was a founding board member of the Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy Association of BC, Canadian Psychedelic Association, and has worked with teams of professionals in researching and designing protocols to bring psychedelic medicine into the mainstream.

Salimeh Tabrizi, M.Ed is a clinical counsellor, success coach, intuitive energy worker and plant medicine advocate who supports individuals in ceremonies and outside with their integration. As the founder of the Cannabis Hemp Conference and Expo, the largest and most comprehensive Cannabis conference in Canada, and a founding member of the Canadian Psychedelic Association, she is inspired by the co-evolutionary process between humans and Entheogenic plants such as Cannabis, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin and San Pedro. She feels grateful to be part of the collective as humanity faces a pivotal point of ascension and has a chance and choice to step into complete self-healing, empowerment, enlightenment and responsibility for Earth stewardship and protection.

Nir Tadmor, M.Sc, is a co-founder of a psychedelic harm reduction and peer support project called Safe Shore, a co-founder of Holotropic Breathwork Israel and a psychotherapist in private practice. He holds a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology from Middlesex University (through the Alef Trust) and trained in Hakomi mindfulness-based psychotherapy. During the last 6 years, Nir supported and supervised hundreds of psychedelic crises in parties and festivals, trained more than 500 psychedelic harm reduction sitters through Safe Shore’s Holding Space workshop and worked as a mental health guide in various psychiatric-hospitalization alternatives. He also co-facilitated psychedelic crisis intervention seminars for psychiatrists in training and in the national paramedic school of the Israeli Red Cross (MDA).

Bruce Tobin, Ph.D., taught art therapy for 25 years at the University of Victoria. He is a founding member of the B.C. Art Therapy Assn. and an Honorary Life Member. With a background in philosophy, he has been in private practice as a psychotherapist for over 30 years, and has been a Registered Clinical Counsellor since 1992. He has pursued interests in the role of non-ordinary states of consciousness in emotional healing and growth, and in the interface between the scientific, psychological and the spiritual dimensions of human life. He has trained in Holotropic Breathwork with Dr. Stan Grof, and is a member of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

Kenneth Tupper is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia and Adjunct Professor in the School of Child & Youth Care at the University of Victoria. His research interests include: psychedelic studies; the cross-cultural and historical uses of drugs; public, professional and school-based drug education; and creating healthy public policy to maximize benefits and minimize harms from psychoactive substances. Kenneth has published in numerous peer reviewed academic journals, presented at international health and drug policy conferences, and has twice been appointed to Canadian delegations to high-level United Nations international drug policy meetings.

Gordon White, MBA, Cert. Con.Res., is a mediator, facilitator & co-founder of the On Conflict Leadership Institute & the OnConflictPodcast. He maintained a general mediation practice for 20 years, but in the past decade has focused on assisting leaders to develop their teams and organizations. Gordon teaches a course in Conflict Analysis and Management in a graduate program at Royal Roads University. He writes about depth perspectives and provides practical tips on conflict engagement at his blog theconflictjourney.com. He is interested in how humans construct reality and how conflict seems to present a useful challenge to the integrity of the self.

Cody Wiggs, MA, LPC, is a therapist and mindfulness coach living in Denver, CO. He has been facilitating transformations for the last decade in a variety of settings from school counseling, wilderness therapy, international service-learning trips, community organizing, in-patient psychiatry, and private practice. Cody is also a trainee in the MAPS MDMA therapist program; however, much of his learning has come through his personal healing journey and exploration of psychedelics, plant medicine, ceremony, and various forms of meditation. This has included deep immersion in the Shipibo tradition of Peru, indigenous traditions of North America, and yogic/meditative lineages originating from Tibetan wisdom. Formerly, Cody authored a curriculum and directed a non-profit that is now bringing social & emotional learning and mindfulness to K-8 students and teachers worldwide.

Monnica T. Williams, PhD, is a board-certified licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, in the School of Psychology, where she is the Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic in Connecticut, where she provides supervision and training to clinicians for empirically-supported treatments. Prior to her move to Canada, Dr. Williams was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School (2007-2011), the University of Louisville in Psychological and Brain Sciences (2011-2016), where she served as the Director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities, and the University of Connecticut (2016-2019). Dr. Williams’ research focuses on African American mental health, culture, and psychopathology, and she has published over 100 scientific articles on these topics. Current projects include the assessment of race-based trauma, unacceptable thoughts in OCD, improving cultural competence in the delivery of mental health care services, and interventions to reduce racism. This includes her work as a PI in a multisite study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. She also gives diversity trainings nationally for clinical psychology programs, scientific conferences, and community organizations. Dr. Williams is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), having served as the diversity delegate from Kentucky for the APA State Leadership Conference for two consecutive years. She has served as the African American SIG leader for Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), and she serves as an associate editor of The Behavior Therapist and New Ideas in Psychology. She also serves on the editorial board ofCognitive Behaviour Therapy, and the Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation, and co-founded their Diversity Council. Her work has been featured in several major media outlets, including NPR, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.

Richard Zeifman is a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at Ryerson University and a research intern at the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. Richard’s research focuses on evidence-based interventions for highly suicidal individuals, as well as mechanisms of change underlying psychotherapeutic outcomes. He is particularly interested in exploring psychedelics as novel interventions for suicidality, as well as identifying psychological mechanisms that account for the therapeutic effects associated with psychedelic therapy.