Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine and Director of Palliative Care Research for the NYU Cancer Anxiety Psilocybin Research Project
“Psilocybin Induced Mystical Experience for End-of-Life Existential and Spiritual Distress: The NYU Cancer Anxiety Study”
Biography: Dr. Bossis is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and a clinical researcher at the NYU Bluestone Center For Clinical Research. He is co-principal investigator, Director of Palliative Care Research, and a session guide for the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Research Project. He is a supervisor of psychotherapy at Bellevue Hospital – NYU Medical Center and the co-founder and former co-director of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service. He is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Pain Management and a member of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care. Dr. Bossis is the co-author (with Drs. C. Grob and R. Griffiths) of the recent chapter, “Use of the Classic Hallucinogen Psilocybin for Treatment of Existential Distress Associated with Cancer” in Psychological Aspects of Cancer (Springer, 2013). Dr. Bossis maintains a private psychotherapy practice in New York City.
Earth Erowid, Technical Director, Erowid Center; Fire Erowid, Executive Director, Erowid Center
“State of the Stone 2013: A Rapidly Changing Landscape”
Biography: Fire Erowid is Executive Director of Erowid Center and Head Archivist of Erowid.org. She is the site’s primary information architect, designer, and editor as well as being responsible for fundraising and budget management. Fire has more than 12 years experience studying psychoactive plants and drugs. She has written hundreds of pages of information about these materials, authored numerous articles, spoken at academic and professional conferences, and has had her work cited by newspapers, education programs, college classes, and seminars around the world.
Earth Erowid is Erowid Center’s Technical Director and the Chief Software Engineer of Erowid.org. He designs and implements the custom software systems necessary for managing the large flow of information through the site and is the lead editor responsible for scientific information published by Erowid. Earth has worked in the field of psychoactive information distribution for more than 12 years and has written extensively on the topic. He has co-authored academic posters, been published in both large and small publications, and been interviewed by major news organizations about his work.
Sexual/Spiritual Counselor and 13 Moon Initiation Facilitator
“The Light & Shadow of Sexuality in Shamanism”
Biography: Yalila Espinoza is a spiritual health practitioner who integrates art, music, dreaming, movement, ancestral rituals & sacred plant teachings into dynamic embodied explorations. She received a PhD in Consciousness and Transformation and Spiritual Counseling training at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Her studies focused on indigenous shamanistic practices, sexual and reproductive health, and dreaming. For the last 10 years she has been engaged in academic studies, Amazonian shamanism using plant teachers, and many other trainings, such as the ISIS wheel approach with Gina Ogden, have nurtured her own spiritual-erotic awakening. All of these transformative experiences have inspired her forthcoming book titled: In The Belly of the Serpent: Sensual Wholeness with Plant Consciousness focused on how the purification and guidance of plant teachers are vital for sexual/spiritual health and liberation.
Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
“Psilocybin in the Treatment of Smoking Addiction: An Update from the Johns Hopkins Research Team.”
Biography: Albert Garcia-Romeu is a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he is currently researching the effects of psychedelic compounds in human subjects, with a focus on psilocybin as a potential treatment for addiction. He received his doctorate at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology where he studied the measurement and experience of self-transcendence in healthy adults.
Psychologist and author of 20-Minute Retreats: Revive Your Spirit in Just Minutes a Day with Simple, Self-Led Practices
“Ayahuasca Use in North America”
Biography: Rachel Harris, Ph.D., is a psychologist with both clinical and research experience. She received an NIH New Investigator Award early in her career as a Research Scientist in the Miami VA Hospital and the Psychiatry Department at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Dr. Harris has published over forty scientific articles in professional journals. Her clinical experience began as an Esalen Residential Fellow and she has been in private practice as a psychotherapist for over 35 years. Rachel is the author of 20-Minute Retreats: Revive Your Spirit in Just Minutes a Day with Simple, Self-Led Practices and co-author of Teenagers Learn What They Live and the best-selling Children Learn What They Live.
Assistant Professor, Center for Spirituality and Healing University of Minnesota and Director of Ethnopharmacology, Heffter Research Institute
“Ayahuasca Yesterday Today and Tomorrow: Perspectives on the Past & Future of Ayahuasca”
Biography: Dennis McKenna is an ethnopharmacologist who has studied plant hallucinogens for over forty years. He is the author of many scientific papers, and co-author, with his brother Terence McKenna, of The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching, and Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide. He holds a doctorate from the University of British Columbia, where his research focused on ayahuasca and oo-koo-hé, two hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. He received post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health, and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine.
In 1990, he joined Shaman Pharmaceuticals as Director of Ethnopharmacology, and in 1993 became the Aveda Corporation’s Senior Research Pharmacognosist. Dennis has been an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota since 2001, where he teaches courses in ethnopharmacology and botanical medicine. He has taught summer field courses in Peru and Ecuador, and has conducted fieldwork throughout the upper Amazon. He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization focused on the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines.
Installation Artist, Psychotherapist, and Principal Investigator of MAPS’ Phase 2 MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study
“Treating PTSD with MDMA-assisted Psychotherapy”
Biography: Marcela Ot’alora G. was born and raised in Colombia and now lives in Boulder, Colorado. She has a MA in Transpersonal Psychology and a MFA in Fine Arts. Marcela is an Installation artist and has an innovative private psychotherapy practice in Boulder. For the first 15 years of her career as an artist she taught at all levels and became specifically interested in the use of visual arts as a tool for working with trauma with at-risk youth. The lives and experiences of the youth she worked with inspired her to pursue a graduate degree in psychology. She has dedicated her professional life to the investigation and research of trauma, specifically the use of MDMA for the treatment of PTSD. In her private practice she incorporates somatic and visualization techniques to help process and Integrate traumatic experiences. Marcela worked as a co-therapist in the first government approved MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study in Spain and is currently Principal Investigator of MAPS’ Phase 2 MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study in Boulder, Colorado.
Executive and Clinical Research Assistant / Harm Reduction Coordinator
“MAPS Clincial Research and Harm Reduction Update”
Biography: Linnae earned her BA in Biological Psychology from New College of Florida in May 2010 where she defended her thesis, which investigated the impact of sleep disturbance in the pathogenesis of depression in a sample of 360 students. During her undergraduate years, Linnae assisted data collection and analysis of various projects at University of South Florida’s Cardiovascular Psychophysiology Laboratory, MOTE Marine Mammal Aquarium Psychophysical Laboratory, East-West College of Natural Medicine, and the West Mamprusi Civic Union in Ghana, West Africa. Linnae served as New College’s Counseling & Wellness Center Student Representative and is continuing her studies through CIIS’ Integral Counseling Psychology Weekend Program.
Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology in the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations at Northern Illinois University
“The Psychedelic Future of the Mind: Enabling Consilience, Enhancing Cognition, and Enriching the Humanities”
Biography: Dr. Roberts’s psychedelic scholarship includes: in education Psychedelic Horizons (2006), in medicine Psychedelic Medicine (2 vols. 2007), in religion Spiritual Growth with Entheogens (2012), and in the liberal arts The Psychedelic Future of the Mind (2013). Since 1981, he has taught the world’s first psychedelics course listed in a university catalog. He is a founding member of MAPS, a co-founder of the Council on Spiritual Practices, and originated the celebration of Bicycle Day.
Poetry and Fiction Writer and Author of “Bizarre Births”
“The Psychedelic Origins of Language”
Biography: Diana Reed Slattery’s writing career began with poetry and fiction in the print world, publishing in magazines and journals such as Georgia Review, New England Review and Breadloaf Quarterly, Fiction International, Antioch Review, Exile, Groundswell, and Kansas Quarterly. She has been anthologized in New World Writing, New Campus Writing, Outlaw Visions, and Golden Horses. Her story, “Bizarre Births” (1988) was included in the Georgia Review’s finalist entry for the National Magazine Award. In the same time period, she received an Honorable Mention in the Pushcart Prize (short fiction) and in The Best American Short Stories. Her short story collection, “Bizarre Births“, was a finalist for the Flannery O’Conner Award for short fiction.
