Jessica Nielson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, and the Institute for Health Informatics at the University of Minnesota (UMN). Jessica has been researching the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca to treat posttraumatic stress (PTS) since 2016, and is currently the Principal Investigator for the VISUP study, the first psilocybin clinical research study at UMN investigating how psilocybin impacts visual perception and neuroplasticity in the human brain.

Dr. Ranji Varghese is board certified in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine. He completed his medical school training at the University of California, Irvine and his specialty training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. He currently serves as Medical Director for Choices Psychotherapy and The Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at Hennepin Healthcare. He is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Minnesota where he has published in peer reviewed journals, serves as Principal Investigator on a human subject trial utilizing high density-EEG as a tool to better understand dissociative sleep states and provides Clinical Supervision and didactic lectures for Sleep Medicine Fellows. As part of his personal, clinical and research interests into the varied states of consciousness, he is co-investigator of the VISUP trial, the first FDA approved psilocybin trial in the state of Minnesota. His role includes assisting in the development of research protocols and safety standards, and serving as a safety and research monitor during human subject psilocybin administration.

Dr. Doss is a meta-physician who has spent his professional career -0. His interest in ketamine and psychedelic-assisted medicine started after the loss of a friend who struggled with burnout and depression. He believes that the pure medical model does not meet the current needs of the population. As a preventive medicine provider, he understands that the bio-psycho-spiritual approach is how we can help address the increasing rates of depression, anxiety, chronic pain, addiction, and suicide. Dr. Doss believes that ketamine assisted-psychotherapy is the practical application of this model in the clinical setting, and that the medicine is a tool to complement therapy, not a cure itself. He is a firm believer in post-traumatic growth, and seeks for all his patients to become stronger after experiencing trauma. Dr. Doss is a board-certified physician and is a co-founder of the the Institute for Integrative Therapies (IIT), the first clinic dedicated to solely providing psychedelic therapies in Minnesota. Under the supervision of Dr. Paul Wolfson, he has received Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy training at the Ketamine Training Center. He is also employed by HealthPartners as a staff physician, assistant faculty member, and Assistant Medical Director for General Mills. In addition to clinical work, Dr. Doss is an environmental health consultant working on projects that study the built environment’s impact on human health, including the State’s CVH and Diabetes 2030 Plan. He hails originally from Virginia and now calls Minnesota his home along with his wife (MN native) and two dogs. His goals in the coming years are to be an advocate for psychedelic therapies within the medical community, contribute to academic literature, and create a community of psychedelic practitioners.”

Panel Description: This panel presentation will cover a broad range of perspectives of psychedelic research within the academic setting. We will bring together a neuroscientist and psychiatrist conducting psilocybin clinical research at the University of Minnesota, a previous research participant from the completed pharmacokinetic study conducted at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the perspective of a budding graduate student planning a dissertation to assess traditional plant medicine healing for trauma, as well as a meta-physician working in various fields of medicine and public health.