Professor Arthur Christopoulos

BPharm, PH.D, FAA, FAHMS

Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University

Arthur Christopoulos is Professor of Analytical Pharmacology, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Director of the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre, Monash University, Parkville, Australia. Prior to his appointment as Dean, he was a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the NHMRC. His work focuses on novel paradigms of drug action at G protein-coupled receptors, the largest drug-target class for current medicines, and has been applied to fundamental and translational studies encompassing neurological and psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and chronic pain.

Professor Christopoulos has over 340 publications, including in leading journals such as Nature, Science and Cell. He has also been the recipient of multiple major national and international awards. Since 2014-present, Clarivate Analytics have named him a Highly Cited Researcher in Pharmacology and Toxicology, and in 2021 also named him a Highly Cited Researcher in Biology & Biochemistry. In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and in 2021 was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Dr Wade Davis CM (Canada)

PH.D

Anthropologist

Wade Davis is a writer and photographer whose work has taken him from the Amazon to Tibet, Africa to Australia, Polynesia to the Arctic, Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013, he is currently Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia.

Wade has authored 22 books, including One River, The Wayfinders and Into the Silence, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his PhD in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. In 2016, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2018 he became an Honorary Citizen of Colombia.

Dr Rick Doblin (USA)

BSc, Ph.D

Executive Director of MAPS

Rick Doblin, PhD, is the founder and executive director 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 catalyse religious experiences. He also conducted a thirty-four-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 and empty rooms from three children who are all in college or recently graduated.

Dr James Fadiman (USA)

BA, Ph.D

Psychologist and Author

James Fadiman B.A. (Harvard) M.A., PhD (Stanford) began his personal psychedelic research a few weeks before starting his graduate work at Stanford where he did his dissertation on the effectiveness of LSD-assisted therapy. During the research lull of 40 years, he has held a variety of teaching (San Francisco State, Brandeis, and Stanford) consulting, training, counselling and editorial positions. He has taught in psychology

departments, design engineering, and for three decades, at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now Sofia University) that he co-founded.

He has published textbooks, professional books, a self-help book, a novel, and a series of videos, Drugs: the children are choosing for National Public Television. His books have been published in 8 languages. He has been the subject of a one-hour documentary released by Page3 Films, featured in a National Geographic documentary and had three solo shows of his nature photography.

He had his own consulting firm and sat on two non-profit boards as well as having been the president of several small natural resource companies. He has been involved in researching psychedelic for spiritual, therapeutic and creative uses and is known for his pioneering work on microdosing. He has published The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys, and most recently, Your Symphony of Selves: Discover and Understand More of Who You Are.

Dr Albert Garcia-Romeu (USA)

B.A., PH.D., M.A

A/Professor Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Albert Garcia-Romeu, PhD is a member of the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Guest Researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program. His research examines the effects of psychedelics in humans, with a focus on psilocybin as an aid in the treatment of addiction. He received his doctorate in Psychology in 2012 from the Institute

of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA, where he studied self-transcendence and meditation, and their relationship to mental health. His current research interests include clinical applications of psychedelics, mindfulness, and altered states of consciousness and their underlying psychological mechanisms. He additionally studies real-world drug use patterns and impacts on public health, and the role of spirituality in mental health and addiction. He is a founding member of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research and the International Society for Research on Psychedelics.

Dr Ingmar Gorman (USA)

PH.D

Psychologist and Co-Founder of Fluence

Dr Ingmar Gorman is the co-founder of Fluence, a psychedelic education company training mental health providers in psychedelic treatments. He is a psychologist specializing in helping people who use psychedelics and other psychoactive compounds. He received his clinical training at the New School for Social Research, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, Columbia University, and Bellevue Hospital. He completed his NIH postdoctoral fellowship at New York University in 2017. Dr Gorman was formerly the Director of the Psychedelic Education and Continuing Care Program, formerly site co-principal investigator and current active therapist on a Phase 3 clinical trial of MDMA-assisted Psychotherapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and active therapist on a Phase 2 clinical trial of Psilocybin assisted Psychotherapy for Treatment Resistant Depression.

Professor Christopher Langmead

Professor (Research) at the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre (NDC), Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS)

Chris Langmead has a strong interest in drug discovery, having spent 15 years working in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry in the UK, where he led project teams to discover four pre-clinical candidate drugs and managed collaborations with academic labs and other pharmaceutical companies.

In 2012 he joined MIPS to head up a drug discovery program in collaboration with Servier Laboratories, France. He is particularly interested in GPCRs as drug targets in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, but also has interest in structure-function of GPCRs and analytical receptor pharmacology, with particular reference to allosteric interactions.

In 2012 he joined MIPS to head up a drug discovery program in collaboration with Servier Laboratories, France. He is particularly interested in GPCRs as drug targets in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, but also has interest in structure-function of GPCRs and analytical receptor pharmacology, with particular reference to allosteric interactions.

Dr Eli Kotler

Psychiatrist

Eli is a consultant psychiatrist, holds an academic position at Monash University through the Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, and is the medical director of Malvern Private Hospital, the first addiction hospital in Australia. He is a member of the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs (APSAD). Clinically, Eli is interested in the deep connections between trauma and addiction and works within a neuro-psychoanalytic framework. Eli has overseen the development of a clinical program for addictions focused on trauma, particularly developmental trauma. This has led to an interest in medication-assisted trauma therapy. Eli worked for many years researching neurodegenerative diseases and was the principle investigator on numerous trials for novel therapeutics. He is founding member of the Melbourne Neuropsychoanalytic Group and welcomes new members. Through involvement with Monash University, Eli oversees the addiction rotation for medical students.

Eli graduated from the first intake of the Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies (CPAT) in June 2021. He has also been recently appointed as the Principal Investigator to lead Emyria’s upcoming MDMA trial.

Dr Gabor Maté CM (Canada)

BA, MD, Doctor of Laws (honoris causa)

Physician and Author

Gabor Maté is a retired physician who, after 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of four books published in twenty-five languages, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness.

His book on addiction received the Hubert Evans Prize for literary non-fiction. For his ground-breaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. His books include In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction; When the Body Says No; The Cost of Hidden Stress; Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder; and (with Gordon Neufeld) Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. To learn more, join his enews list at www.drgabormate.com

Dr David E. Nichols (USA)

BSc, PhD

Psychedelic Chemist

David E. Nichols, PhD is an Adjunct Professor of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Previously he held the Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology and was a Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Cincinnati in 1969, and the PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Iowa in 1973, following which he did postdoctoral work in pharmacology at the University of Iowa, College of Medicine. In 2004 he was named the Irwin H. Page Lecturer by the International Society for Serotonin Research and in 2006 he received the first Provost’s Outstanding Graduate Mentor award from Purdue University. He has published more than 300 scientific articles, most of which deal with the relationship between molecular structure and biological action.

Professor David Nutt (UK)

BA, MB BChir, MRCP, MA, DM, MRC Psych, FRCPsych, FMedSci, FRCP, FSB

Head of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and Chief Research Officer at Awakn Life Sciences

Renowned researcher, policy advisor and author, Professor David Nutt, is currently Head of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London.Under the leadership of Professor Nutt, the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College is one of the world’s foremost psychedelic research laboratories, publishing landmark research on psychedelic therapies and neuroimaging studies of the psychedelic state.

Professor Nutt has also held many leadership positions in both UK and European academic, scientific and clinical organisations, including presidencies of: the European Brain Council, the British Neuroscience Association, the British Association of Psychopharmacology, the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

He was previously Chair of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

Dr Bill Richards (USA)

Ph.D.

Psychologist in the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research

William A. Richards (Bill), a psychologist in the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, has been implementing research studies with psilocybin since 1999. His graduate degrees include M.Div. (Yale), S.T.M. (Andover-Newton) and PhD (Catholic University). He also studied with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis University and with Hanscarl Leuner at Georg-August

University in Göttingen, Germany, where his involvement with psilocybin research originated in 1963. From 1967 to 1977, he implemented projects of psychotherapy research with LSD, DPT, MDA and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, including protocols designed to investigate the promise of psychedelics in the treatment of alcoholism, depression, narcotic addiction and the psychological distress associated with terminal cancer, and also their use in the training of religious and mental-health professionals. His book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences has been released by Columbia University Press.

Dr Ben Sessa (UK)

MBBS, B.SC, MRC PSYCH

Chief Medical Officer at Awakn Life Sciences, Psychiatrist, Researcher and Writer

Ben Sessa is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist who has worked with young people and adults in the field of addictions and trauma-related psychiatry for over 20 years. For the last 15 years Ben has been at the forefront of psychedelic research in the UK through his affiliations with Bristol University and Imperial College London, under the auspices of Professor David Nutt. He has taken part as a study doctor and as a healthy subject both receiving and / or administering MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, DMT and ketamine in multiple UK research studies. He runs one of the first UK-based medical cannabis prescribing clinics.

Ben is the Chief Medical Officer at AWAKN Life Sciences, a new start-up company opening Europe’s first psychedelic medical clinic, which will be providing psychedelic therapies, therapist training courses and conducting independent research. Ben is the co-founder and former president of Europe’s largest psychedelic conference, Breaking Convention.

Dr Jeremy Weate (Canada)

PH.D

Chief Executive Officer, Eastra Health

Jeremy Weate has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Warwick. He has over 17 years strategic advisory experience, focused on minister-level guidance on the mining sector across over 50 projects in over 30 countries in Europe, Africa, Central Asia and the South Pacific. Jeremy also has a decade-long interest in the medicalization of ibogaine. In 2018, he helped set up Tabula Rasa Retreat in Portugal, now of the leading ibogaine treatment facilities globally. He has organised ibogaine conferences in Vienna, Porto and London.