Kwasi Adusei, DNP, PMHNP, is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and co-founder of the Psychedelic Society of Western New York, out of which he developed a local psychedelic harm reduction organization. Kwasi is a trainee of the MAPS sponsored MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD and was part of the first therapists of color cohort. Kwasi sits on advisory boards for Psychedelics Today, the Psychedelic Medical Association, and the committee for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Horizon Health Services, a western New York-based nonprofit mental health organization of over 700 employees where he works as a psychiatric nurse practitioner in their substance use disorder detox, long-term rehabilitation, and in one of their 26 outpatient centers.
Robin is the Professor of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. He moved to Imperial College London in 2008 after obtaining a PhD in psychopharmacology from the University of Bristol. Robin has designed human brain imaging studies with LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and DMT, and two clinical trials of psilocybin for depression. He has authored over 127 papers. Robin founded the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in 2019, and in 2021, was named in TIME magazine’s "100 Next" – a list of 100 rising stars shaping the future.
Rick Doblin, PhD, is the founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He received his doctorate in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he wrote his dissertation on the regulation of the medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana and his master's thesis on a survey of oncologists about smoked marijuana vs. the oral THC pill in nausea control for cancer patients. His undergraduate thesis at New College of Florida was a 25-year follow-up to the classic Good Friday Experiment, which evaluated the potential of psychedelic drugs to catalyze religious experiences. He also conducted a 34-year follow-up study to Timothy Leary's Concord Prison Experiment. Rick studied with Dr. Stanislav Grof and was among the first to be certified as a Holotropic Breathwork practitioner. His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise healthy people, and eventually to become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist. He founded MAPS in 1986, and currently resides in Boston with his wife, dog, and empty rooms from three children, one of whom is in college and two who have graduated.
Dr. Rakesh Jain attended medical school at the University of Calcutta in India and attended graduate school at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, where he was awarded the National Institute/CDC Competitive Traineeship. He graduated from the School of Public Health in 1987 with a Master of Public Health degree. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship in research psychiatry with the Gerontology Center of the University of Texas Mental Sciences Institute in Houston, where he received a national research service award for the support of the postdoctoral fellowship. After this, he served a 3-year residency in psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and completed 2 years of child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship.
Dr. Jain is currently involved in multiple research projects studying the effects of medications on the short- and long-term treatment of depression, anxiety, pain/mood overlap disorders, and psychosis in adult and child/adolescent populations. He is also the author of several articles on the issue of mood and pain conditions. He was recently named Public Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers, Gulf Coast Chapter, in recognition of community and peer education and the championing of mental health issues.
Dr. Saundra Jain is the Executive Director of the Mental Aerobics Project, focused on wellness and the impact of positive psychology on client outcomes. Dr. Jain provides workshops to healthcare practitioners, organizations, businesses, and individuals interested in learning more about the power of wellness. In 1992, she launched a private psychotherapy practice, where she currently provides services for a wide range of mental health issues.
Dr. Jain is very active in the area of peer-to-peer education, especially in the disease states of depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and ADHD. Another strong clinical and educational interest involves differential diagnosis of major psychiatric disorders. She is the co-creator and co-presenter of a novel and well-received interactive workshop/program addressing the challenges of dealing with psychiatric co-morbidities through the use of psychiatric scales and screeners. This program reached a national audience and, according to many attendees, changed the way they practice medicine. She has been instrumental in developing several other innovative tools/programs to fill current gaps in this area. She is the co-creator and co-presenter featured on an interactive DVD titled "Differentiating Bipolar Depression from Unipolar Depression." Recently, Dr. Jain served as the co-host of "Depression in Relationships," a medical education program broadcast in 20 major cities in the United States on several major television networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox) and the Voice of America national news and talk radio system. She is also the senior coauthor of two well-received books that were written for clients: Unleashed: Transforming My Battle With Depression and Unleashed: 12 Weeks to Total Mental Fitness, both directed toward the needs of patients struggling with mental health issues.
She obtained her master's degree from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and a doctoral degree from Southern California University for Professional Studies. She demonstrated her professional versatility by obtaining an MBA from Texas Woman’s University. She is a licensed professional counselor and a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. She has extensive clinical training in multiple sites, covering the gamut of childhood, adolescent, and adult experiences in the private and the public sectors. She was selected for a postgraduate clinical fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, where she trained in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Dr. Lynn Marie Morski is the president of the Psychedelic Medicine Association, host of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, and the medical director for Maya.
Dr. Morski received her medical degree from Saint Louis University School of Medicine, did her family medicine residency at Mayo Clinic, and completed a sports medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona. She received her law degree from Thomas Jefferson School of Law and is a member of the California Bar.
Following fellowship, she spent nine years as a physician at the Veterans Administration. Her biggest frustration during her years working for the federal government at the VA was that she was unable to discuss the benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy she knew could help the veterans she was serving. After leaving the VA in 2019, she made it her mission to help educate her fellow physicians on the plant medicines and entheogens that could bring life-changing relief to their patients.
In furtherance of this mission, she started the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast in 2019, and she and her team founded the Psychedelic Medicine Association in 2020 to formally educate healthcare professionals on psychedelic medicines.
Andrew Penn was trained as an adult nurse practitioner and psychiatric clinical nurse specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. He is board certified as an adult nurse practitioner and psychiatric nurse practitioner by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Currently, he serves as a Clinical Professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Nursing. Mr. Penn is a psychiatric nurse practitioner with Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City, California, where he provides psychopharmacological treatment for adult patients and specializes in the treatment of affective disorders and PTSD. He is a former board member of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, California Chapter, and has presented nationally on improving medication adherence, emerging drugs of abuse, treatment-resistant depression, diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, and the art and science of psychopharmacologic practice. He is a founding member of the Organization of Psychedelic and Ethneogenic Nurses (OPENurses).
Charles Raison, MD, is the first Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Healthy Minds, Children, and Families and Professor, School of Human Ecology, and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. Prior to this, he was Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, and the Barry and Janet Lang Professor of Integrative Mental Health at the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona.
Dr. Raison is internationally recognized for his studies examining novel mechanisms involved in the development and treatment of major depression and other stress-related emotional and physical conditions, as well as for his work examining the physical and behavioral effects of compassion training. The recipient of several teaching awards, Dr. Raison has received research funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, Dr. Raison received the Raymond Pearl Memorial Award from the Human Biology Association “in recognition of his contributions to our understanding of evolutionary biocultural origins of mental health and illness.”
Dr. Raison serves as the Founding Director of the Center for Compassion Studies in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona and is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Usona Institute. He is the mental health expert for CNN.com.
London, England
As Clinical Lead of the Psilocybin for Depression Study at Imperial College London and Clinical Director of Synthesis Institute Dr. Rosalind Watts recognized the potential of psychedelic therapy, but also its risks and pitfalls, namely that the psychedelic substance can open the door, but real, long-lasting benefits depend on substantial integration support. She is the founder and director of Twelve Trees Integration, a global community with online and in-person aspects to support people in the months and years after their psychedelic experiences. Twelve Trees focuses on helping people build their connectedness to self, others, and the natural world. This is the mechanism that Dr. Watts discovered to be underpinning the changes observed in her psilocybin for depression research, leading her to develop a model for psychedelic therapy, "Accept, Connect, Embody (ACE)," a model for community integration of psychedelic work, "Accept, Connect, Embody, Restore (ACER)," and a psychometric tool for measuring connectedness (Watts Connectedness Scale (WCS). Dr. Watts co-founded the UK's first psychedelic integration group, sits on advisory boards for The Usona Institute and The Synthesis Institute, and is a consultant psychologist for small pharma that are investigating DMT as a treatment for depression.