Journalist and Author, #1 New York Times Best-Seller, "How To Change Your Mind"

Michael Pollan

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers; three of them (including his latest, How to Change Your Mind) were immediate #1 New York Times bestsellers. Previous books include Cooked (2013), Food Rules (2009), In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008) and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), which was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by both the New York Times and the Washington Post. How to Change Your Mind was named one of the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2018. In 2020 he published a new audio book titled Caffeine, available from Audible. In 2021, he will publish a book titled This is Your Mind on Plants.

Mycologist, Researcher, Author and Entrepreneur

Paul Stamets

Paul Stamets is the author of seven books. He is an Invention Ambassador for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was inducted into The Explorer’s Club in 2020. He has received numerous awards, including 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). His work has entered 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 became a central theme of this series.

Founder and Director, CIIS Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research

Dr. Janis Phelps, Ph.D.

Janis received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut. She has been a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies for the past 21 years.  She is the former dean of the School of Consciousness and Transformation at CIIS.  She is now the Director of the CIIS Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research. As the Center’s founder, she developed the first academically accredited, professional certificate training program for legal psychedelic-assisted therapy and research. The Center also provides harm reduction workshops, webinars on psychedelic research and public educational programs.  A licensed clinical psychologist and LMFT, she has held faculty positions in the East-West Psychology and Clinical Psychology doctoral programs.  Dr. Phelps teaches graduate courses in quantitative and qualitative research methods, mindfulness, Buddhism and psychotherapy, spiritual counseling, and principles of healing. Janis serves on the board of the Holos Institute and maintains a private practice.

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Albert Garcia-Romeu, Ph.D.

Albert Garcia-Romeu, Ph.D. 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. 

Founder and Executive Director, MAPS

Dr. Rick Doblin

Rick Doblin, Ph.D., 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 catalyze 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, dog, and empty rooms from three children, one of whom is in college and two have graduated.

Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Anthony Bossis

Dr. Bossis is a clinical psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. He is Director of Palliative Care Research, Co-Principal Investigator, and a session guide for the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Project, a FDA-approved clinical trial investigating the efficacy of a psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon existential and psycho-spiritual distress in persons with cancer.

Author, Teacher, Counselor, Co-Founder, Center for Consciousness Medicine

Françoise Bourzat

Françoise Bourzat has been bridging the divide between western psychology and indigenous wisdom in collaboration with healers in Huaulta de Jiminez, Mexico for the past 30 years. She is a co-founder of the Center for Consciousness Medicine, which trains people to become guides in a holistic method of psychedelic-assisted therapy. She is also the co-author of Consciousness Medicine, published by North Atlantic Books.

Françoise served on the advisory board for the Oregon Prop 109 initiative and is currently collaborating with the Pacific Neuroscience Institute in an FDA-approved research study on psilocybin-assisted therapy for Covid-related grief.

She has a Master of Arts in Somatic Psychology and is trained in the Hakomi Method. Françoise has taught at CIIS in San Francisco, is a counselor, and runs online courses and lectures in various institutions.

President of the Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the Humaita River (ASPIRH)

Tuwe Huni Kuin

Tuwe Huni Kuin is an indigenous youth leader, a spokesperson for his peoples and their issues domestically and internationally, and is also a film maker who is currently documenting an emerging issue on the border between Peru and Brazil – peoples in voluntary isolation are forced to leave their lands and are approaching the territories of the Kaxinawa peoples of the Western Amazon.

Psychiatrist and Author

Dr. Julie Holland

Julie Holland is a psychiatrist specializing in psychopharmacology, with a private practice in New York City. Dr. Holland also provides expert testimony and forensic consultation on a range of drug-related behavior and phenomena, with a focus on PCP and MDMA.

Pharmacologist and Medicinal Chemist

Dr. David E Nichols

David E. Nichols, PhD is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.  He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy and was the Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology, where he carried out teaching and research for 38 years prior to his retirement in 2012.

He devoted his entire professional career to the study of psychedelics and was one of only a few investigators able to research psychedelics after they were scheduled and is considered the world’s leading expert on the chemistry of psychedelics. In 1993 he founded the Heffter Research Institute and served as its president for more than 25 years, which funded the first rigorous scientific studies of psychedelics in humans after nearly a 40 year moratorium, and the groundbreaking Phase I and II studies of psilocybin for the treatment of depression, as well as substance use disorders.

Dr. Nichols synthesized the DMT used by Dr. Rick Strassman in his human studies, the MDMA that MAPS used for their Phase I and II clinical trials for PTSD, and the psilocybin used by several investigators for human clinical studies including the Phase I and II trials conducted at Johns Hopkins University by Roland Griffiths and his colleagues. Dr. Nichols, although officially retired, remains active in the field through consulting collaborations with several academic and pharmaceutical organizations and continues to publish scientific papers.

Professor and Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan

Dr. Erika Dyck

Erika Dyck is a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, and a Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine. She is the author of Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD from Clinic to Campus (Johns Hopkins, 2008; University of Manitoba Press, 2011), Managing Madness: The Weyburn Mental Hospital and Transformations of Psychiatric Care in Canada (2017) and the co-editor of Culture’s Catalyst: Encounters with Peyote and the Native American Church in Canada (2016) and Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond (2018).

Psychiatrist, Researcher and Writer

Dr. Ben Sessa

Dr Ben Sessa MD 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 25 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 worked for a year at 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.

CEO of Boom Bay Integrative Healing and Board Member, CPA

Jazmin Pirozek HBA, MSc

Jazmin Pirozek, HBA, MSc practices and teaches traditional and contemporary methods regarding the Boreal and Amazon forests plants. Currently, Jazmin is a consultant combining scientific and traditional methods, focussing on remediating chronic illnesses for the people of Northern Ontario, Canada. Jazmin has applied concepts of Nishnawbe Aski Nation Health Transformation perspectives in her work to combine Traditional and Contemporary Health practices to create better access to Integrative medicine for all.

Jazmin is an advisor with Science North, Ontario’s Science Education Centre and has written and narrated their planetarium production “Under the Same Stars: Minwaadiziwin.” She was invited to the UK for Breaking Convention 2019 and the Psychedelic Psychotherapy Forum 2020 to speak about the historical and current uses of traditional psychedelic medicines and their effective treatment of chronic mental health illnesses. Jazmin founded Boom Bay Integrative Healing and Learning Centre on Beautiful Lake of the Woods, Kenora, Ontario, set to continue construction into 2021.

Founder, KRIYA Institute

Raquel Bennett, Psy.D.

Raquel Bennett, Psy.D. is a psychologist and ketamine specialist from Berkeley, California. She primarily works with people who are living with severe depression, bipolar disorder, and/or suicidal ideation. Dr. Bennett is fascinated by the antidepressant and anti-suicidal properties of ketamine, and has been studying them 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 KRIYA Conference, which are both devoted to the use of ketamine in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Chief Medical Officer, ATMA Journey Centers

Dr. Ravi Bains

Dr. Bains earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology prior to studying medicine at the University of Manitoba, his home province. He completed a psychiatric residency at Dalhousie University where he went on to complete a fellowship in ISTDP ( Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy). Subsequent to graduating in 2006, he has practiced as an inpatient psychiatrist, as well as a psychotherapist. Dr. Bains has gone on to do both inpatient and outpatient work, as well as practice as a psychotherapist.

Founding Board Member of Canadian Psychedelic Association

Dr. Pamela Kryskow

Dr. Pamela Kryskow is a medical doctor with a strong interest in chronic pain, mental health and psychedelic medicine. She is a clinical instructor at UBC and adjunct professor at VIU. She is one of the founding board members of the Canadian Psychedelic Association. Dr Kryskow is actively involved in research related to psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, COVID, mental wellness and neurogenesis. She is co-investigator on the largest microdosing study Microdose.me which is ongoing with 12000+ enrolled participants. She is the medical lead on the Roots To Thrive Ketamine Assisted Therapy program that treats health care providers and first responders with PTSD, depression, anxiety, and addiction. In real life she loves hiking in the forest, ocean kayaking, growing kale and daydreaming in the hammock.

Medical Director, Kuya Institute

Dr. Dan Engle

Dr. Dan Engle specializes in Psychiatry and Neurology, with a clinical practice that combines aspects of regenerative medicine, orthomolecular psychiatry, integrative spirituality and peak performance methods.

Currently, he is Medical Director of Kuya Institute for Transformational Medicine and consultant to Onnit Labs in Austin Texas, the True Rest Float Centers in Phoenix Arizona as well as several international healing centers using indigenous plant medicines of the Peruvian Amazon River basin.

His programs include Freedom From Meds, a comprehensive and integrative tool kit for successful transition from psychiatric medications, the Concussion Repair Manual, facilitating the return to optimal function after concussion and traumatic brain injury, BOLD – Brain Optimization and Lifestyle Design – a coaching program for maximizing brain health and cognitive performance, and Full Spectrum Medicine, a research, education and advocacy platform pioneering the future psychiatric healing centers using consciousness expansion tools for root-cause healing and total life transformation.

Imam and Plant Medicine Supporter in Vancouver, B.C.

Fawad Kalsi

Devout Muslim, family man and proud father of three beautiful children. Fawadhad a life transforming experience in March 2017 when he was radically healed by the mystical healing power of Iboga at Liberty Root run by Trevor Millar. He believes Iboga is divine and sacred. As someone who never used drugs recreationally, this miracle cure came after living with chronic pancreatitis for 5+ years resulting in heavy dependence on opioids; complete failure and only solution provided by the mainstream medical system. 

Since being cured, his priority is to share his experience, create awareness within his community and support the movement of sacred plant medicine.

Opounga, "the Wind"

Mama Aline

Mama Aline was born in 1977 in Mouila, Gabon. Apart from her academic studies, she has been interested in traditional Gabonese medicine from her early childhood. She was introduced to Bwiti by healings from her spiritual mother before being properly initiated, and later went through Elombo, Mboumba Yano, Mabouni and Elogho initiations before becoming a spiritual mother herself.

Co-Founder/Director, The Sentinel Retreat Centre

Gillian Maxwell

Gillian has over two decades of experience in harm reduction and drug policy reform, is a board member for MAPS Canada and a founding board member of CPA, (Canadian Psychedelic Association).  She is the co-founder and director of The Sentinel Treatment and Wellness Centre in the West Kootenays of British Columbia. 

Founder and Chair, TheraPsil

Dr. Bruce Tobin

Dr. Tobin received his doctorate from University of Washington in 1983, specializing in philosophy of psychology. He has been in private practice psychotherapy for 35 years, specializing in the treatment of anxiety, depression and emotional trauma. He taught clinical skills for 25 years at University of Victoria, where he was Adjunct Assistant Professor and a member of the Graduate Faculty. He worked under contract with Health Canada for 20 years providing psychological services to First Nations communities in the Victoria area. He is interested in the interface between psychology and spirituality, and the role that altered states of consciousness play in enhancing clinical processes.

Board Member, Canadian Psychedelic Association

Trevor Millar

Trevor Millar is a social-entrepreneur who has played a key role in advancing the psychedelic movement for nearly a decade. He has the unique perspective of having operated a business where he legally administered psychedelics to over 200 people within Canada, mostly for substance use disorder. Since May 2018 he has been on the board of directors for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Canada, where he acted as Chair of the Board for over two years. MAPS is a non-profit organization and a leader in supporting scientific research into psychedelics. He is also currently a board member and co-founder of the Canadian Psychedelic Association.  From 2012 to 2017, Trevor was active as the founder and President of Liberty Root Therapy Inc., a business dedicated to healing and transformation by legally providing the plant medicine ibogaine to people mostly with opiate use disorder. Trevor was featured in the award-winning documentary about using magic mushrooms and Iboga to treat addiction, anxiety and depression called DOSED, which was released in 2019. He is currently the Chief Psychedelic Officer of NeonMind Biosciences Inc., a corporation dedicated to developing and commercializing products that contain legal medicinal mushrooms and those that may contain psychedelic compounds. Trevor is also on the Advisory Board of Nature Spirit Labs Inc.

Master Plant Medicine Healer

Maestro Cesar Maynas Bardales

Cesar Maynas Bardales a.k.a. Soimetsa (meaning ‘Beautiful and Well-Done Work) is a Shipibo-Konibo Onaya (medicine man) with 25 years of experience in the treatment of human malaises with medicinal plants and, in particular, the master plant Oni (Ayahuasca).

President and CEO, Mind Cure Health

Kelsey Ramsden

Kelsey Ramsden is the President and CEO of Canadian public psychedelics company Mind Cure Health Inc. She has spent her life building and scaling businesses in novel and exciting ways. She was named one of Canada’s 100 most powerful women, won Canada’s #1 female entrepreneur two years in a row, and proudly serves as a Richard Branson Centre Mentor.  Kelsey also serves on the Entrepreneurship Council for the University of Western Ontario, where she is also a faculty member teaching Design Thinking. An accomplished keynote speaker and bestselling author, Kelsey holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Psychotherapist and Author

Bruce Sanguin

Bruce Sanguin has been a Clinical Fellow with the Canadian Association of Marriage and Family Therapists for 25 years. He currently lives in Victoria, BC where he practices as a psychotherapist.  He is the author of seven books, the latest of which, Dismantled: How Love and Psychedelics Broke a Clergyman Apart and Put Him Back Together, describes his own healing journey using psychedelics in the context of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.  As well as practicing psychotherapy, Bruce is a keynote speaker at psychedelic conferences, with an active interest in the integration of spirituality and psychology.

Founder and CEO of Design House Collective

Treya Klassen

Blending deep expertise in personal transformation and communication with C-level business acumen as well as extensive knowledge of design, Treya Klassen delivers a powerful approach to engineering movements that make a difference in the world. 

As the founder and CEO of Design House Collective, she leads a team of creative strategists, artists, business philosophers, and filmmakers who design brands that transform reality and cause breakthrough results. In the last several years, her team has received dozens of awards for excellence in product innovation, brand storytelling, and design. She has helped many well-known companies and brands create trust, build followings and cause social change.

Registered Nurse and Doctor of Nursing Practice

Stephanie Hope

Stephanie Hope is a Registered Nurse and Doctor of Nursing Practice. She has practiced since 2011 in the areas of acute care oncology, hospice, and health coaching and received a Doctorate of Nursing Practice in 2019 from the University of Minnesota in the specialty of Integrative Health and Healing. Stephanie worked as a study guide for NYU’s Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study, helping to guide patients through psychedelic experiences with psilocybin to address existential distress. She has published articles on psychedelics and nursing in the Journal of Holistic Nursing and the American Journal of Nursing (in press) and currently provides an introductory course for nurses on sacred medicine and psychedelic therapy. She has studied indigenous wisdom traditions for the past ten years under the guidance of her teacher and currently lives and practices within a spiritual community in upstate New York.

Psychologist and Psychedelic Researcher

Dr. Alex Belser

Dr. Alex Belser is a psychedelic researcher and psychologist at Yale University. For the last 20 years, he has been a leader in the psychedelic research community, having served as an investigator on a number of clinical trials of psilocybin and MDMA to treat depression, anxiety, substance use, OCD, PTSD, and end-of-life distress. He is the founding President of Nautilus Sanctuary, the first non-profit center for psychedelic medicine on the east coast. He serves as the Chief Clinical Officer of Adelia Therapeutics, a Cybin company and the third largest publicly traded psychedelic life sciences company. Dr. Belser’s research has been featured on the front page of the New York Times, in the Atlantic, the New Yorker, The Guardian, and in Michael Pollan’s book, How to Change Your Mind.  Dr. Belser has authored over a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters and has given over fifty lectures, presentations, and Grand Rounds about psychedelic medicine. At Yale, Dr. Belser is investigating psychedelic treatments for OCD and depression. He worked as a therapist on studies of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of severe PTSD.  Dr. Belser studied at Georgetown University, the University of Cambridge, Columbia University, New York University, and Yale University.  Dr. Belser trained at Bellevue Hospital, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, and New York Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University.

Respected Bwiti Nganga

Christian “Ghepepe” Mokambo

Christian is  of Tsogo ethnicity, is 38 years old, and was born into the Bwete having grown up in a village that practised in the Missokko tradition.  He practises the rites of  Miobe, Ngonde and Dissumba.  His combo is Ghepepe, which means oxygen or air, which is the source of life.  He says the the Bwete has taught him many things about people, life and healing.  Within the tradition, he is a very well respected healer and counsellor, helping to support people in solving personal problems and interpersonal disputes.  He is considered as a ‘Wise Man’ within his wider community. In preparing to working with Iboga or Ibogaine as a healing modality, he views the preparatory purification process as being vitally important in preparation for the work.  This includes plant baths, smoke baths and vomitivos to clean and purify the physical, energetic and emotional bodies before ingesting any form of the wood.  He feels honored to be invited to the conference, and is excited to share more of his culture.

Medical Director and member of Clinical Advisory Council of Numinus

Dr. Devon Christie

Devon is the medical director and member of the Clinical Advisory Council for Numinus Wellness Inc. She is a family physician with a focused practice in Multidisciplinary Pain Management and is a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor with an emphasis in Relational Somatic Therapy for trauma resolution. She is also a teacher in the Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research post-graduate program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

Trained to deliver MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD under MAPS USA and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, she is certified in Functional Medicine, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Interpersonal Mindfulness, and Kundalini Yoga. Equally, she is a recognized speaker and expert on the potential of incorporating psychedelic-assisted therapies in an integrated healthcare model.

Board Member of Canadian Psychedelic Association and Business / Life Coach

Sonia Stringer

Sonia Stringer is a business / life coach and professional speaker who has been involved in transformational work for over 25 years.  She started her career working with peak performance expert Anthony Robbins, before launching her own coaching/training company that serves hundreds of thousands of clients globally.  Sonia has been a passionate advocate regarding the transformational use of psychedelics and plant medicines since 1998. 

Sonia has a strong background in growing and nurturing networks and online communities. Her current focus is to serve and scale the membership of the Canadian Psychedelic Association into a powerful, engaged community that provides members educational and networking opportunities, and the opportunity to impact lives by supporting the therapeutic use of psychedelics and plant medicines in Canada.        

Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology, UBC

Zack Walsh, Ph.D.

Zach Walsh, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, a Research Affiliate with the BC Centre on Substance Use, and an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, where he directs the Therapeutic, Recreational, and Problematic Substance Use lab.  He has published and presented widely on topics related to psychedelics, cannabis, mental health and psychotherapy. He is the lead investigator for several ongoing studies of the therapeutic use of cannabis including a clinical trial of cannabis for PTSD, and has worked clinically on trials of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Zach’s clinical focus is on the application of “third wave” mindfulness-based behavior therapies to address trauma, relationship conflict, and problematic substance use. 

Philosopher, Counsellor, Founder and CEO of Innerland Institute

Tania Fierro

Tania is a philosopher, speaker, counsellor, facilitator, Olympic athlete, and transformation specialist. Tania founded Innerland in 2003 and has been offering clients a deeply compassionate, razor-sharp awareness to get to the crux of what gets in the way of a situation. Tania is a Certified Counsellor by the American Philosophical Practitioners Association in New York. She has served as the Human Rights Director at Tibet House Mexico and The Institute for The Work of Byron Katie.

Tania co-designed a strong, consistent and successful inquiry process called IBC™ (Inquiry Based Coaching) that she applies supporting individuals, organizations and high profile corporations. She also designed and offers Immersions that involve the teaching and practice of this method combined with other modalities. Hundreds of people have gone through her trainings, in North America and Europe allowing for deep undoing of repetitive, stressful patterns that cause suffering and blocks in our lives. As a result people step into their alignment, creative and natural power in their own unique way.

Additionally throughout her life, she has fully immersed in several eastern transformational traditions such as Plant Medicine, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, and Advaita as well as a former avid dancer.

Research Therapist with MAPS

Dr. Hayden Rubensohn

Dr. Hayden Rubensohn completed medical training at the University of Calgary in 2012. He began his residency training in Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, but transferred to Internal Medicine program 2014. He completed 4 years of Internal Medicine training, followed by 2 years of subspecialty training in Palliative Medicine.

Dr. Rubensohn is a research therapist with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) since 2014 and has been involved in Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials using MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD in Vancouver.

Dr. Rubensohn’s hope is to ultimately study psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in palliative populations to address existential distress and psychospiritual suffering.

Senior Faculty with The Haven Institute

Linda Nicholls

Linda Nicholls is an elder, serving as a guide in transformational circle work for more than 35 years in North America and internationally. She is a member of the Canadian Psychedelic Association because she is keenly interested in working therapeutically with psychedelics. 

Linda has worked intimately with people of all ages and cultures with a focus on: body and energy training; breathwork; shadow work; communication; sexuality; grieving; boundaries; alternatives to depression; renewing relationships; and guiding young people into adulthood. She is Senior Faculty with The Haven Institute on Gabriola Island, BC, Canada.

CEO EntheoNation, Host of The Plant Spirit Summit

Lorna Liana

Lorna Liana is a media entrepreneur and full-stack internet marketer, whose hybrid career spanning high tech, social enterprise, and psychedelics inspires her to help visionary brands communicate & grow with integrity while engaging in reciprocity. 

Lorna is currently the CEO of EntheoNation, a media company covering psychedelics, modern shamanism, and visionary culture. She is also the Founder of The Plant Spirit School, an online school offering workshops, programs, and 1-to-1 mentoring to individuals and professionals in the psychedelic and plant medicine sector. Browse EntheoNation’s Online Courses here. https://members.entheonation.com/

As a full-stack internet marketer, Lorna helps psychedelic brands, startups, retreat companies, guides, integration coaches and therapists grow their business with integrity through:

• Content strategy that engages, educates & inspires
• Online marketing that attracts customers & clients
• The creation of values-aligned reciprocity programs

Over the last 20 years, Lorna’s activist work in indigenous rights and cultural preservation has brought her to:

• The highlands of Chiapas as a human rights observer in an indigenous Zapatista community, documenting the Mexican government’s campaign of low-intensity warfare against indigenous highlight communities.

• To indigenous communities in the lowlands of the Ecuadorian Amazon, to bear witness to the largest oil spill on the planet and biggest environmental lawsuit in history

• To India, Nepal, and Tibet, to distribute aid to Tibetan communities in exile, people who fled persecution by the Chinese Communist government

• A multitude of indigenous communities in restricted territories of Acre Brazil, as a guest of Huni Kuin, Yawanawá, Ashaninka, Kuntanawa, and Puyanawa tribes

Lorna grew up in the former British colony of Hong Kong, and is deeply familiar with the impact of colonization upon subjugated peoples, having lived it herself. Over 18 years of working intentionally with psychedelics for healing and personal growth, Lorna has come to understand the extent to which racial trauma pervades communities of color, especially black, brown, and indigenous communities in white-dominated, colonized countries, plus the promise of psychedelic medicine to heal this trauma. For this reason, she is committed to using her privilege to center indigenous perspectives and advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the psychedelic sector.

Registered Nurse, Addiction Nursing Fellow with BC Centre on Substance Abuse

Benny Bloomfield

Benny Bloomfield is a Registered Nurse, an Addiction Nursing Fellow with the BC Centre on Substance Use, and the Coordinator of an Assertive Community Treatment Team with Fraser Health Authority. Benny is the co-founder of the Fraser Valley Psychedelic Society, and is building a team to bring the Roots to Thrive Resiliency and Ketamine Assisted Therapy Program to BC’s Lower Mainland. Benny was a patient partner in the first cohort of Roots to Thrive, which he describes as the most healing experience of his life.

Rinzai Zen Osho (priest and teacher)

Eshu Karl Martin, Osho RCH

Eshu Karl Martin, Osho RCH is a Rinzai Zen Osho (priest and teacher) and is past Abbot of Zenwest Buddhist Society. Eshu currently maintains a clinical hypnotherapy and trancework practice at Monarch Trancework, is the Spiritual Health Coordinator at Victoria Hospice, and is a practitioner of ancestral animism.

His lifelong commitment to the positive transformation made possible by non-ordinary states of consciousness has shaped the experiential development of a skillset that bridges diverse worlds from the spiritual and ceremonial to the scientific and biomedical.

Eshu is an advocate for the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge keepers and traditional ways of working with psychedelic medicines as new models within “the system” are developed; and believes that cultural safety, trauma informed practice, and harm reduction are fundamental to making these healing therapies more widely accessible.

Educator and Integration Coach

Christopher Gunlock, M.H.S

Christopher is an educator and integration coach, specializing in psychedelic integration and chronic metabolic illness through his platform Open Mind Integration. He’s also the executive director of the Psychedelic Society of Minnesota where he’s working to help build community around psychedelics. He has a Masters in Health Sciences in Integrative Medicine at The George Washington University and B.S. in Mathematics at The Maharishi University of Management. When he’s not working, he enjoys making electronic music and making cute animal memes about psychedelics.

Emergency Physician and Associate Clinical Professor, UBC Dept. of Emergency Medicine

Ian Mitchell

Ian Mitchell is an Emergency Physician working in Kamloops, BC and an Associate Clinical Professor at the UBC Department of Emergency Medicine. He has worked at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver and in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He is interested in harm reduction and was the physician lead for the first emergency department distribution of Take Home Naloxone kits in Canada. He is a cannabis clinician and researcher, and was the qualified investigator in an RCT of cannabis for PTSD. He has been using ketamine as part of his emergency practice for 25 years and is on the board of directors for the Ketamine Assisted Therapy Association of Canada (katacanada.org).

Master of Counselling Psychology, graduate of Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery Program at Harvard

Ailey Jolie

Ailey holds a Masters of Counselling Psychology and is a graduate of the Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery Program at Harvard Medical School. She has completed training in Sex Therapy at the University of Guelph and Eating Disorders at the Faculty of Medicine at the University College of London. She has trained to deliver both MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD (MAPS USA) and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, in a research setting. She has completed the requirements to be a certified Focusing Oriented Therapist, Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Her education and life experience lead to a specialized clinical focus on trauma integration, female sexuality, and body reclamation. She is also the author of ‘My Body, My Story’.

Counsellor, Founding Member, Canadian Psychedelic Association

Salimeh Tabrizi, M.Ed

Salimeh Tabrizi, M.Ed is a clinical counsellor, success coach, intuitive energy worker and plant medicine advocate who supports individuals in and out of ceremonies. As a founding member of the Canadian Psychedelic Association and the founder of the Cannabis Hemp Conference and Expo, the largest and most comprehensive Cannabis conference in Canada, 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 and responsibility for Earth stewardship and protection.

Cannabis Facilitator, Co-Host of Cannabis Health Radio

Corrie Yelland

Corrie was diagnosed in July of 2011 with Anal Cancer and given 2-4 months to live if she did not do radiation. The doctor told her that she had a “death wish”, and that I was going to die and walked out. Since then, Corrie started to make and take Cannabis Oil. She waited a year to go back to the doctor, and was told she was cancer free.  Subsequent biopsies confirmed no trace of cancer. She said all along that if this worked, she would spend the rest of her life telling people about this, which is what she does. She receives thousands of emails and speaks with hundreds of people a week from around the world. She has played a part in saving well over 1,000 lives worldwide and those are just the ones she is aware of as many people don’t follow up, and then she will hear through the grapevine they are cancer free. The youngest person she has had the pleasure of seeing through to cancer free was 2 months old. The eldest was 86. As well as continuing to do this work, 12-14 hours a day,  7 days a week, she also co-hosted a podcast, with Ian Jessop, called Cannabis Health Radio 5 days a week, interviewing patients who have used cannabis to cure or assist in their various health conditions, as well as experts in the field.

Member of Parliament, Beaches-East York

Nathaniel (Nate) Erskine-Smith

Nathaniel (Nate) Erskine-Smith is the Member of Parliament for Beaches-East York.

He sits on the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

He also sits on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) as past president. In his role as President, he has represented Canada at parliamentary conferences around the world.

His speeches in the House of Commons and interventions at committee can be found here.

Nate regularly attends events around Beaches-East York, volunteers his time in support of local charitable activities, and visits local schools to talk to young Canadians about the importance of participating in the democratic process.

Nate became the M.P. on October 19, 2015, after a successful grassroots open nomination in December 2014.

In June 2016, CBC News’ Aaron Wherry wrote about the importance of independence in the House of Commons, and Nate’s relatively independent streak.

In July 2016, Althia Raj from the Huffington Post wrote a longer profile piece in which Nate explained his voting record, and general philosophy on free votes.

And in September 2016, the Star’s Susan Delacourt wrote about his work in parliament, and the idealism he brings to the job.

Nate has strong roots in Beaches-East York, where he was raised and has lived most of his life. Nate attended Bowmore and Malvern, grew up playing baseball at Ted Reeve and Stan Wadlow, and his parents Sara Erskine and Lawrence Smith are well respected local teachers. Nate lives in the riding with his wife Amy, a chef and nutrition professor at George Brown College, and the director of the supper club program at Gilda’s Club Greater Toronto. They have two sons, Mackinlay, born in 2016, and Crawford, born in 2019.

Before politics, Nate was a lawyer at a commercial litigation firm downtown Toronto. He supplemented his practice with volunteer legal work for a range of clients and causes, which included fighting public interest matters in court, and research for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

He obtained his B.A. (Politics) and J.D. (Law) from Queen’s University, where he pitched for the varsity baseball team. After working at a large Bay Street law firm and being called to the bar, Nate obtained his B.C.L. (Master of Laws), with distinction, from the University of Oxford where he studied political philosophy and constitutional law, and pitched for both the University and City baseball teams.

Event and Media Producer, Writer, Connector and Advisor

Mike Margolies

Mike Margolies is a psychedelic community catalyst and conversation creator. He is the Founder of Psychedelic Seminars (psychsems.com), an educational conversation series, and co-founder of the CryptoPsychedelic Summit. Mike started the Baltimore Psychedelic Society and has sparked and mentored similar groups around the world from San Francisco to DC to Portugal. He has contributed to a number of other projects as an event and media producer, writer, connector, and advisor.

Research & Operations Manager at Maya PBC

Jaz Cadoch, M.A

Jaz has recently completed her master’s degree in Medical Anthropology at McGill University, is the former Executive Director of the Montreal Psychedelic Society, and is the Research & Operations Manager at Maya PBC. Her master’s research explores the implications involved in a shifting paradigm around psychedelic substances. She pays particular attention to the ethics involved in integrating this new approach to managing mental illness into conventional and dominant ones, particularly in looking at twelve-step-based models of recovery from addiction. Beyond her research interests, Jaz contributes significantly to the psychedelic community through on-the-ground initiatives such as the psychedelic society, and other collectives that are still in the works.