Ira Byock, MD, FAAHPM 

Keynote Speaker: Ira Byock, M.D., FAAHPM is a leading medical authority and public advocate for improving care through the end of life. Dr. Byock is the Founder/Chief Medical Officer, Institute for Human Caring at Providence St. Joseph Health. Dr. Byock’s research has contributed to conceptual frameworks for the lived experience of illness along a continuum from suffering to well-being. Dr. Byock has authored numerous articles in academic journals including a recent provocative and compelling paper in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management titled, “Taking Psychedelics Seriously.”

Anthony P. Bossis, PhD 

Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine conducting FDA-approved clinical research with the psychedelic compound psilocybin since 2009. Dr. Bossis was director of palliative care research and co-principal investigator on the landmark 2016 clinical trial and publication (Journal of Psychopharmacology) demonstrating a significant reduction in emotional distress from a single psilocybin session in persons with cancer, specifically, a rapid decrease in depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and demoralization along with improvements in spiritual well-being and quality of life.

Dr. Bossis is also a training supervisor of psychotherapy at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center and co-founder and former co-director of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service. He is on the faculty of The Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dr. Bossis can be seen in the documentary film Fantastic Fungi.

Phil Wolfson, MD

Principal Investigator for the MAPS sponsored Phase 2, FDA approved 18-person study of MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for individuals with significant anxiety due to life threatening illnesses.  Dr. Wolfson’s book The Ketamine Papers has been published by MAPS and is the seminal work in the burgeoning ketamine arena. Dr. Wolfson’s clinical practice with ketamine led him to develop a protocol for Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy for Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD) and he is currently developing a Ketamine protocol for hospice patients.

Julane Andries, LMFT & Evan Sola, PsyD 

Co-therapists for the MAPS sponsored, MDMA assisted psychotherapy study for individuals suffering from anxiety with life-threatening illness.

Julane Andries, LMFT is a practicing psychotherapist in Marin County, CA. She worked in acute care medicine before becoming a marriage family therapist. She was the principle co-therapist for the MAPS sponsored, MDMA assisted psychotherapy study for individuals suffering from anxiety with life-threatening illness. She is also co-therapist in the new Phase 3 study using MDMA assisted psychotherapy for severe PTSD in San Francisco.

Evan Sola, PsyD is a psychologist in private practice in San Francisco, a researcher in FDA clinical trials for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD at UCSF, and a contributing author of the MAPS-sponsored treatment manual of MDMA for PTSD. Evan completed his pre-doctoral internship at the Jung Institute in San Francisco and wrote his dissertation on themes of transformation emerging from MDMA psychotherapy sessions with combat veterans.

Joshua Biddle, MD

Joshua Biddle is the medical director of outpatient palliative care at the UCSF affiliated Marin Health Medical Network. Dr. Biddle received his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, completed medical school at UCSF, Internal Medicine Residency at Stanford, and a Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship again at UCSF. Dr. Biddle was a study physician on the UCSF Psilocybin for AIDS Survivors Study and continues to be interested in the use of psychedelic medicines, particularly psilocybin, to treat existential and psycho-spiritual distress in patients with serious illness.

Andrew Penn, MS, NP, PMHNP-BC

Andrew Penn is a UCSF trained psychiatric nurse practitioner. Andrew has completed training in Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy at the California Institute for Integral Studies and recently published a book chapter on this modality in The Casebook of Positive Psychiatry. Andrew serves as an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Nursing, where he teaches psychopharmacology and psychiatric assessment, and is an Attending Nurse Practitioner at the San Francisco Veterans Administration. Andrew was a study therapist in the MAPS sponsored Phase III study of MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD and is currently co-investigator for the Usona sponsored trial of psilocybin facilitated therapy for depression. Andrew has lectured nationally on the topic of psychedelic assisted therapy.

Brian Anderson, MD, MSc 

Brian is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF Weill Institute for the Neurosciences. He is an attending in the Psychiatric Emergency Services at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. His research has included both ethnographic studies of religious practitioners who use psychedelics in community settings and clinical trials. In 2018, he conducted a pilot study of psilocybin-assisted group therapy for demoralization in older, long-term AIDS survivor men.

Mellody Hayes, MD

Dr. Hayes is a Harvard and UCSF trained anesthesiologist and an expert on the science and clinical applications of psychedelic medicine. Passionate about transforming our society and the care of the dying, she cofounded Decriminalize Nature—an organization that successful decriminalized psychedelics in Oakland and and other cities. She serves as consultant for Senator Scott Weiner’s campaign to decriminalize psychedelics in the state of California.

She has recently launched Upgrade My Heart, a psychedelic-enabled wellness program that uses technology to support transformation. Her charitable organization, How We Heal, provides funding to people of color for psychedelic medical care.

She is certified in MAPS MDMA training program. As a speaker and educator, she’s been interviewed on podcasts such as GOOP and Charles Eisenstein and her writings have been featured in Scientific American and the Los Angeles Times.