Presenters

Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D. is the Director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience; he is the William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology and has been at Wisconsin since 1984. He has published more than 250 articles, chapters and reviews, and has edited 13 books. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his research, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Scientist Award, the Established Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders (NARSAD) and the William James Fellow Award from the American Psychological Society. Dr. Davidson was the founding co-editor of the new American Psychological Association journal, EMOTION. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and to the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters in 2004. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006.

Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. is a Professor of Behavioral Biology, Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. His research has been largely supported by grants from the National Institute on Health and he is author of over 300 journal articles and book chapters. He is the lead investigator of the psilocybin research project at Johns Hopkins, which includes studies of psilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experience in healthy volunteers and cancer patients, and a pilot study of psilocybin-facilitated smoking cessation. He has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health, and to numerous pharmaceutical companies in the development of new psychotropic drugs. Dr. Griffiths is also currently a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence for the World Health Organization.

Charles S. Grob, M.D. is director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine. Prior to his appointment at UCLA, he held teaching and clinical positions at the University of California Irvine, College of Medicine and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics. Dr. Grob conducted the first government approved psychobiological research study of MDMA, and was the principal investigator of an international research project in the Brazilian Amazon studying the visionary plant brew, ayahuasca. He recently completed an approved research investigation on the safety and efficacy of psilocybin treatment in terminally ill patients with anxiety. Dr. Grob is the editor of Hallucinogens: A Reader and co-editor (with Roger Walsh) of Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics. He is also a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute.

Sean Kelly, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. He has published numerous articles on Jung, Hegel, transpersonal psychology, and the new science and is the author of Coming Home: The Birth and Transformation of the Planetary Era and Individuation and the Absolute: Hegel, Jung, and the Path toward Wholeness.  Dr. Kelly is also co-editor (with Donald Rothberg) of Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers, and co-translator (with Roger Lapointe) of French thinker Edgar Morin's book, Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millennium. Along with his academic work, Sean has trained intensively in the Chinese internal arts (T'ai Chi, Pa Kua, and Hsing-I) and has been teaching T'ai Chi since 1990. His current interests focus on integral theory and the intersection of consciousness and ecology in the Planetary Era.

Michael Kometer, M.S.  is a Doctoral Candidate affiliated with the Neuropsychopharmacology and Brain Imaging Unit at the University Hospital of Psychiatry, headed by Dr. Franz X. Vollenweider. He studied neuropsychology at the University of Zurich and is currently researching on the spatiotemporal brain dynamics of emotional and visual processing in psychedelic-induced states of consciousness and its relevance for understanding and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Antoine Lutz, Ph.D. is an Associate Scientist at the Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, located in the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His principal research focus has been on the neurodynamical correlates of consciousness and on the relationship between neuroplasticity and meditation training. His research has been largely supported by grants from the National Institute of Health. He is also serves as a Scientist at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, a multidisciplinary University initiative that focuses on research, outreach and training, led by Dr. Richard Davidson.

Dennis McKenna, Ph.D. has taught courses in ethnopharmacology, botanical medicines, and drugs and society in the Center for Spirituality and Healing, University of Minnesota, where he is an Assistant Professor. He is also Co-Founder and Director of Ethnopharmacology for the Heffter Research Institute. Recently, he was the principle investigator on a project investigating Amazonian ethnomedicines as treatments for cognitive deficits, and in the 1990’s was originator and co-investigator on the Hoasca Project, the first biomedical investigation of ayahuasca. He served as Director of Ethnopharmacology at Shaman Pharmaceuticals when it was founded in 1990, following post-doctoral work in the Laboratory of Cllinical Pharmacology at NIMH and the Department of Neurology at Stanford. He has conducted extensive ethnobotanical fieldwork in the Amazon where his research is focused on the ethnopharmacology, botany, and chemistry of psychoactive and medicinal plants utilized in ethnomedicine.  

David E. Nichols, Ph.D. is the Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Distinguished Chair, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Purdue University. He is also the President, Co-Founder and Director of Preclinical Research for the Heffter Research Institute. The focus of his graduate training, beginning in 1969, and of much of his research subsequent to receiving his doctorate in 1973 has been the investigation of the relationship between molecular structure and the action of psychedelic agents and other substances that modify behavioral states. His research has been continuously funded by government agencies for more than two decades. He consults for the pharmaceutical industry and has served on numerous committees and government research review groups. Widely published in the scientific literature and internationally recognized for his research on centrally active drugs, Dr. Nichols has studied all of the major classes of psychedelic agents.

Peter Russell is a fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, of The World Business Academy and of The Findhorn Foundation, and an Honorary Member of The Club of Budapest. At Cambridge University (UK), he studied mathematics and theoretical physics. Then, as he became increasingly fascinated by the mysteries of the human mind, he transitioned to experimental psychology. His principal interest is the deeper, spiritual significance of the times we are passing through. He is a well-known author of ten books (e.g. The Brain Book, The Global Brain Awakens, The Consciousness Revolution, Waking Up in Time, and From Science to God) and producer of three films on consciousness, spiritual awakening and the future development of humanity. As one of the more revolutionary futurists, Peter Russell has been a keynote speaker at many international conferences, in Europe, Japan and the USA.

Franz X. Vollenweider, M.D. is currently a practicing psychiatrist and the director of the Psychopharmacology and Brain Imaging Unit at the University Hospital of Psychiatry (Burghölzli) and appointed lecturer (PD) in the School of Medicine, University of Zurich. During the past ten years, Dr. Vollenweider has established a research program aiming to understand the neural basis of altered states of consciousness in health, schizophrenia, and affective disorders. His research has been continuously supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Federal Health Office (BAG), and the Heffter Research Institute, USA. He has received the Achievement Award of the Swiss Society of Psychiatry (1990), the Heffter Research Institute Award (1997), the Götz Prize (2000) of the University of Zurich and the British Association of Psychopharmacology Prize (2002) for his research into the neurobiology of hallucinogens and the correlation with states of endogenous psychosis. Dr. Vollenweider's publications have appeared in peer reviewed scientific journals, including many addressing the mechanisms underlying the effects of psychostimulants, hallucinogens, and entactogens in humans.