Psychedelic Facilitation Certificate Program

Faculty Director and Principal Investigator

Tina Trujillo is an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Education, where she has researched and taught about the politics of education; policy analysis; epistemology; and the links among education, democracy, and social justice. Her current interests focus on nature and well-being, as well as scientific, spiritual, and Indigenous ways of knowing. Tina is faculty director of the BCSP Certificate Program, where she conducts ethnographic research and an evaluation of the program. She is interested in understanding how this training can be diverse and inclusive, serve to identify best practices in the professional preparation of psychedelic facilitators, and advance the use of psychedelics as tools for mending humans’ relationships with the broader natural community.

Program Director, Spiritual Care

Moana Meadow, MA, MDiv, brings experience as a birth doula, hospice chaplain, spiritual director, and psychedelic guide. She was ordained as an interfaith minister at the Chaplaincy Institute, where she served as guest faculty and academic advisor until 2018. She later served as executive director of a non-profit church focused on plant medicine traditions, and participated in the early development of the Sacred Plant Alliance. She has studied with Indigenous elders in the United States and Mexico, as well as with Western practitioners providing psychedelic facilitation in a variety of contexts. She holds a BS from MIT, an MA from Boston University, and an MDiv from the Pacific School of Religion, and she completed four units of Clinical Pastoral Education at hospitals in Hawaii and California.

Sylvestre Quevedo MD, MPH is an associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at UCSF and a principal investigator in FDA trials of MDMA to treat PTSD. He graduated from UC Berkeley, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard School of Public Health before serving as an assistant professor at Stanford Medical School and the founding director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the O’Connor Hospital in San José. He later joined the Global Health Sciences group at UCSF, where he was involved in medical education reform, ambulatory care redesign, international health efforts, and public-private partnerships in healthcare. Dr. Quevedo has served on national boards and committees, including the Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health of Kenya.

Psychotherapy, Clinical Science, and Research

Joseph Zamaria, PsyD, ABPP, is a licensed and board-certified clinical psychologist and an associate clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the UCSF School of Medicine. At the BCSP, he directs the psychotherapy curriculum as well as the clinical science and research curriculum. He has been a researcher of psychedelics for over fifteen years, and at UCSF, has served as a therapist and researcher in clinical trials examining the potential of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to treat a range of conditions. Dr. Zamaria is a founding member of the American Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Psychological Association (AMENA-PSY) and serves on the advisory board of the Fireside Project.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Mary Sanders, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and social justice advocate exploring transgenerational trauma with BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, veterans, immigrants, refugees, and foster youth. Mary has completed training at CIIS CPTR, MAPS, and the Ketamine Training Center and is certified in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Mary works both in private practice and at the Veteran Affairs’ homeless program in San Francisco. She is a founding board member of the People of Color Psychedelic Collective. At the BCSP, Mary lectures on historical and current systems of oppression, explores collective healing through an intersectional lens, and facilitates conversations around community-oriented infrastructures that center accessibility, and culturally attuned care. She is currently completing training in Somatic Experiencing and Internal Family Systems.

Program Coordinator

Kristina Hunter is a mindfulness-based somatic counselor and writer with a specialization in psychedelic integration. She has spent over fifteen years studying the transformative potential of expanded states of consciousness with Indigenous and mestizo practitioners from Central and South America. Additionally, she has been studying and practicing Buddhadharma with Tibetan and American teachers for the past two decades. Kristina’s work explores the intersection of psychology, plant medicine, and Buddhist contemplative practice. She consults with clinicians on individualized approaches to psychedelic facilitation, with an emphasis on preparation and integration, self-awareness, and harm reduction. At the BCSP, Kristina supports the Ethics curriculum, tracks legislation and policy developments, and conducts research on programmatic content areas.

Ethics for Expanded States

Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT, developed and teaches InnerEthics®, a self-reflective, self-compassionate approach to ethical relationship for therapists and practitioners. She has been writing and teaching about ethics for almost three decades. Kylea started studying with Stanislav Grof, M.D. and Christina Grof in 1984 and worked with Grof as a Senior Trainer in the Grof Transpersonal Training throughout the 1990s, facilitating and observing thousands of extra-ordinary state of consciousness sessions. She is the author of The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship with Clients, The Breathwork Experience, Considering Holotropic Breathwork®, and is the editor of Exploring Holotropic Breathwork®. At the BCSP, she brings her expertise instructing learners in the nuances of ethics for psychedelic care.

Contemplative Science and Practice

Eve Ekman, Ph.D., MSW, is a teacher, writer, and contemplative social scientist. At the BCSP, Eve leads experiential sessions on the science and practice of compassion, emotional awareness, and pro-social connection as supportive tools for psychedelic participants and healthcare professionals. Eve’s qualitative research has explored burnout, emotional awareness, psilocybin-assisted therapy, and meditation. With the support of the Dalai Lama, Eve and her father collaborated on the Atlas of Emotion, an online tool for developing emotional awareness. Eve is the lead trainer for the Cultivating Emotional Balance training program, Well-Being and Mental Health Lead at Apple, Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center at UCB, and a Mind and Life Institute fellow.

Neuroscience

David Presti teaches neurobiology, psychology, and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley. For more than a decade he worked in the clinical treatment of addiction and PTSD at the San Francisco VA Medical Center; and for two decades he has been engaged in dialogue and teaching on science with Tibetan Buddhist monastic communities in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. He has doctorates in biology from Caltech and in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon, as is author of Foundational Concepts in Neuroscience: A Brain-Mind Odyssey (Norton, 2016) and of Mind Beyond Brain (Columbia, 2018).

Contemplative Science and Practice

Sean Feit Oakes, PhD (he/they, queer, Puerto Rican & English, living on Pomo ancestral land in Northern California), teaches Buddhism and somatic practice focusing on the integration of meditation, trauma resolution, and social justice. He received Insight Meditation teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, and wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance. Sean holds certifications in Somatic Experiencing (SEP, assistant), and Yoga (E-RYT 500, YACEP), and teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, Insight Timer, and elsewhere.

History and Public Policy

Bob Jesse has been a quiet driving force behind the contemporary psychedelic renaissance. He was instrumental in forming the psilocybin research team at Johns Hopkins University and has coauthored several of its papers. He has led the drafting of numerous foundational documents, including the Code of Ethics for Spiritual Guides in 1995; an amicus brief for the US Supreme Court in a successful religious liberty case in 2005; and a statement on Open Science, now signed by numerous leaders in the psychedelic field, in 2017. Bob studied electrical engineering and computer science at Johns Hopkins, consulted for AT&T Bell Labs, and worked at Oracle as a vice president of business development.

Reciprocity and Ecological Awareness

Kathleen Harrison, MA, is an ethnobotanist who has traveled and studied for five decades in
indigenous cultures of the Americas, and in the Western psychedelic subculture that arose in
the 1960s. She explores the relationships between plants, fungi, and human beings –
particularly in the realms which are often hidden: cultural beliefs, rituals of healing and
initiation, vision-seeking modalities, and creative forms that illustrate a plant-human
relationship. She also studies and teaches the deep history of humans in nature, encompassing
times before the advent of agriculture, and before colonization. Kathleen founded Botanical
Dimensions in 1985, with her then-husband, the late Terence McKenna. She developed an
extensive ethnobotany research library. With her daughter, she has nurtured a long friendship
with a sprawling Mazatec family in southern Mexico. Kathleen has taught courses for
universities and other institutes in California, Hawaii and the northwest Amazon.

Ancestral Entheogenic Traditions

Susana Bustos, PhD, is a psychotherapist and music therapist trained in Chile, whose work focuses on the transformative potential of expanded states of consciousness. A Holotropic Breathwork practitioner since 1999, Susana directed the Spiritual Emergence Network in the U.S. between 2016-2020. Her 20+ years of study of entheogenic traditions from the Americas, especially their healing practices and songs, brought her to teach and mentor students in psychedelic-assisted therapy trainings in the Bay Area and abroad, and to co-found the Escuela de Psicovegetalismo. At BSCP, she leads the Ancestral Entheogenic Traditions curriculum, aiming to bridge the conversation between anthropocentric healing systems and those based on the relationship of human cultures with other sentiences in nature.

Luma Muhtadie, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of PTSD and complex trauma, attachment disruptions, and adjustment to major life transitions. She has served diverse individuals and underserved groups as a staff psychologist on the PTSD Clinical Team at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs and in private practice, and as an adjunct professor at California State University Los Angeles, Smith College, and the University of San Francisco. Dr. Muhtadie earned her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where her clinical work and research focused on the role of mind-body connections in stress and well-being. She has co-authored numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and contributed as an author and editor to books.

Jason Butler, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, a psychotherapist and supervisor at Sage Integrative Health, and an associate professor in the Integral Counseling Psychology department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His therapeutic approach and teaching orientation is an integration of archetypal, relational, somatic, and liberation frameworks. He is a co-founder of Alchemy Community Therapy Center, a sliding scale clinic in Oakland offering low-fee ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. He has written several published articles and chapters on the intersection of depth psychology and social justice. He is the author of a book entitled Archetypal Psychotherapy and is the co-editor and co-author of a newly released book entitled Integral Psychedelic Therapy: The Non-Ordinary Art of Psychospiritual Healing.

Gregory Cajete is a Native American educator whose work is dedicated to honoring the foundations of Indigenous knowledge in education. Dr. Cajete is a Tewa Indian from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, and a practicing ceramic, pastel, and metal artist. He is extensively involved with art and its application to education, is a scholar of herbalism and holistic health, and designs culturally-responsive curricula geared to the special needs and learning styles of Native American students. At the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he served as dean of the Center for Research and Cultural Exchange, chair of Native American Studies and professor of ethno-science. He has authored ten books. 

Courtney Watson is a queer Black mother, lover, and community member in Ohlone Lisjan territory (Oakland, California). She is descended from enslaved Africans stolen from West and Central Africa, Louisiana Chahtah, their white European oppressors and their disappointed Gallic old ones. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex therapist, and medicine woman studying African and American Indigenous knowledge systems. She owns Doorway Therapeutic Services, a group therapy practice focused on the mental health needs of Black Indigenous people of color, queer folks, trans, gender non-conforming, non-binary and two-spirit individuals. Her non-profit, Access to Doorways, helps subsidize the cost of psychedelic training programs and sponsors queer- and BIPOC-led psychedelic projects.

Mireya Alejo Marcet is a licensed psychotherapist and expressive arts therapist in private practice in San Francisco and Berkeley. She has been a certified holotropic breathwork practitioner since 1993, and is committed to the process of spiritual growth, consciousness exploration and creative expression. She studied social anthropology at Universidad Metropolitana in Mexico City, where her thesis focused on traditional women healers (curanderas), and participated in a comparative study of traditional and alternative ways of healing. Mireya has a strong interest in the integration of spiritual emergency processes, intergenerational and collective/historical trauma, diversity and gender issues, the immigrant experience, multicultural understanding, and the power of ritual, ceremony and creativity in community.

Dr. Joe Tafur, M.D. is a Colombian-American family physician originally from Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of The Fellowship of the River: A Medical Doctor’s Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine. He is currently a fellow at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine. Dr. Tafur is a co-founder of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor (CEC). The CEC is currently pursuing legal protection for their practice of sacred ayahuasca ceremony. Dr. Tafur is also a co-founder of the nonprofit Modern Spirit. Among their projects is an epigenetic analysis of the impact of MAPS MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

Mati is a spiritual care provider, psychedelic chaplain, and practicing performance artist. Her background is in hospital chaplaincy, palliative care, and ketamine-assisted therapy. Mati guides clients through immersive experiences as a means of spiritual inquiry and emergence. She offers psychedelic integration informed by creative praxis and trauma-informed spiritual care. She obtained her M.Div. from the University of Chicago and trained in Integral Movement and Performance Practice (IMPP) at Arthaus Berlin in Germany. She completed a two-year foundational intensive in trauma integration, group coherence building, and contemplative practices with Thomas Hübl and has a certificate in ssychedelic-assisted therapies from Naropa University, where she has taught and facilitated contemplative practice and spiritual assessments.

Angella Okawa, LMFT, is a multidisciplinary bridge-builder working with individuals and organizations to build capacity to connect across difference. Her background is in design thinking, tech, depth psychotherapy, and working with trauma, culture, self and identity. She obtained her M.A. from Pacifica Graduate Institute, trained in the Hakomi Method, Real LIFE Facilitator Training with her Zen teacher Diane Musho Hamilton, and the MAPS MDMA BIPOC Psychedelic Training. She is also a certified integral coach and iEQ9 accredited coach. She has taught navigating difference at places such as MAPS, IDEO, Blue Shield Foundation, and Ford Motors. She has a twenty-year meditation practice and is ordaining as a monk in April 2024.

Julie is a psychiatric and family nurse practitioner. She received her master’s in nursing from the University of Miami and UCSF. After working in an ER, the Veteran Affairs, and  private practice for seven years, Julie co-founded and co-directed an integrative mental health and wellness center that incorporates legal psychedelic-assisted treatments. She is trained in ketamine-assisted therapy by the KRIYA Institute. Her clinical work focuses on psychiatric care, integration of altered states of consciousness and ketamine-assisted therapy.  Clinically, her work is informed by her certification in Somatic Experiencing, as well as extensive experience in Central and South America working within Mazatec and Shipibo traditions. She has also co-authored book chapters on the therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines.

Alex is a psychotherapist in private practice. He received his Master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Touro University and has completed ketamine assisted therapy training with Polaris Insight Center and Fluence. His therapy practice is a blend of psychodynamic, somatic, humanistic, systemic and existential modalities. In addition to being a therapist, Alex has been a teacher of mindfulness and movement practices for over a decade. His pedagogical and personal development has led him across the world and back, sitting with masters from diverse lineages such as authentic movement, contact improvisation, Shipibo, Advaita Vedanta, Hatha yoga, Dzogchen, Zen, and body-mind centering. Alex’s curiosity is deeply inspired by these teachers, spiritual friends and thinkers. 

Yvan Beaussant is a palliative care physician and investigator. He holds a masters degree in ethics in Paris Descartes University and graduated with a certificate in psychedelic therapies and research at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he now serves as a mentor. He leads the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he studies the effects and mechanisms of psilocybin-, MDMA- and Ketamine-assisted therapy on depression, pain, and existential distress in patients with serious illnesses. His research also aims at identifying and addressing the barriers of equitable implementation for PAT in serious illness care.