2023 Speakers

Amanda Reiman, PhD, is the Chief Knowledge Officer at New Frontier Data and the Founder of Personal Plants.

Dr. Reiman is a social ethnobotanist and has been studying the relationship between cannabis, people and greater society for over 20 years. She is the Founder of Personal Plants, a platform designed to help people develop healthy, balanced relationships with psychoactive plants and the Chief Knowledge Officer for New Frontier Data, an analytics company serving the legal cannabis industry. Dr. Reiman earned her PhD in Social Welfare from the University of California and conducted one of the first research studies on medical cannabis patients and the use of cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs. She currently resides in Ukiah, CA with her partner Sean, their 3 cats and 2 dogs.

Ariel Clark (she/they) is co-founder of Clark Howell LLP, a women-steered business, corporate and regulatory law firm focused on cannabis and psychedelics. She also co-founded the Psychedelic Bar Association, serves on the Board, and on the Religious Use and Ethics Committees. She is co-creating a 2023 series on Law & Ethics: The Psychedelics Industry & Indigenous Peoples. Ariel is Odawa Anishinaabe and walks the Red Road. After practicing Indian Law and working with cannabis clients in California’s Bay Area, she started her own firm in 2010, to be of service to the plants and communities she is in deep connection with. Clark Howell LLP is actively engaged in the conversation about psychedelic lawyering, and helping to shape policy that emphasizes open source, ethical business models that honor the Earth, Peoples, and lineages, and reimagines a new role for capitalism in commercialization. Ariel has a Bachelors of Arts from University of Michigan in Religious Studies (2000) and a JD from Berkeley Law School (2005).

Bethany Gomez has established herself as a trailblazer in emerging markets, with a focus on cannabis, CBD and wellness. As the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Brightfield Group, she has cemented the company’s position as an industry leader by emphasizing data-driven insights and compelling narratives. Through her leadership, Brightfield has played a significant role in the development of nascent industries like cannabis, CBD, and other innovative CPGs. ‍ Bethany has been featured and quoted in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance and more.

Britt Rollins, Co-Founder of the National Psychedelics Association, brings a wealth of experience from the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. Having worked at renowned agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, DDB, and Real Chemistry, Britt has been instrumental in guiding brands through pivotal moments, from launches to rebrands and FDA expansions. His tenure as Managing Director of Verdant Brand Communications saw him delve into emerging areas, notably women’s sexual health and adult-use cannabis, where he crafted narratives that resonated. Beyond the corporate world, Britt’s commitment to mental health advocacy is evident. His roles with the Educational Foundation of America and Veterans of War highlight a genuine drive to make a difference. Recognized by his peers and honored with industry awards, Britt’s approach combines deep knowledge with a knack for storytelling, making him a trusted strategist in marketing and healthcare. As the National Psychedelics Association gears up for its 2024 launch, Britt’s vision and expertise will undoubtedly play a key role in its trajectory. 

Chris Claussen is a visionary thinker and creative problem solver with over 25 years’ experience in startups, operations, marketing, and new product innovation. The past decade having been immersed in the science of brain health and cognitive function, focused on new product development, and creating innovative delivery methods in the mushroom and functional foods space to help promote optimal wellness. Brain health mission driven in devoting extensive time to researching the relationship between functional, functional, and psychedelic mushrooms on cognitive performance and mental wellbeing.

Chris Walden is an experienced professional with a demonstrated history of effectively raising awareness about the clinical use of ketamine at scale. His company, Ketamine Media, has represented nearly 300 clinics over the last seven years throughout North America. 

Courtney Barnes is a devoted social justice attorney and trailblazer in drug policy reform. She serves as Counsel at the law firm, Feldman Legal Advisors PLLC, where she specializes in advising clients on compliance and risk management in emerging industries. In addition to her legal practice, Courtney provides a variety of advisory services to the psychedelics ecosystem. She serves as Policy Advisor for the Mind Army, General Counsel for the Society for Psychedelic Outreach Reform and Education (SPORE), and Advisory Board Member of Heroic Hearts Project. Courtney was a lead drafter of Denver’s Psilocybin Decriminalization Initiative (the nation’s first successful voter-initiated psychedelic policy reform ordinance) and has extensive experience drafting state and local policy relating to the regulation of cannabis and psychedelics. She is licensed to practice law in California, Colorado, and Texas.

Did you know that Psilocybin testing is a complex process that requires scientific expertise? Testing for Psilocybin Potency is one of the most important tests in our psilocin panel and one of the most widely asked questions we encounter: How and Why? Dosage accuracy, Safety, and potential harm reduction, Standardization , and Quality control are just a few of the responsible components to our in depth recording and testing methodologies. In Oregon, Rose City Labs is the only licensed laboratory that can perform these tests. However, since there were no established industry standards or guidelines, the process was slow and challenging. The journey began two years ago with measure 109, and our team has dedicated hundreds of hours to developing reliable testing protocols by utilizing and creating testing standards to ensure compliance with the State’s regulatory requirements. Longtime counter-culture advocate and Lab owner, Dan Huson will share industry insights and steps toward laboratory regulations, potency and purity testing. 

Growing up in the Mojave desert imparted upon Daniel with a keen sense of the stark beauty and inherent complexity of the natural world and cultivated a deep curiosity towards those elements hidden within its systems. Combining this love of the natural world with an educational background in Information Technology, Daniel works in research and development of novel compounds, delivery systems, and efficient extraction and testing methods within the psychedelics industry. 

Born in Ramaytush Ohlone territory (San Francisco, CA) Dr. Somerville is a mother, activist scholar and healer whose work is intentional in organizing, cooperative development, healing from trauma, and advancing decolonized principles and practices in organizational spaces. Dr. Somerville is trained in clinical and liberatory based healing strategies and draws upon these approaches in her work with clients and communities. She is a lifelong learner and carries this interest into the veins of her approaches to organizational development, leadership, organizing and her work as a healer. She is a proud graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz (BA Sociology, Political Science) and Boston University (MSW – Human Resources Management) and earned her PhD in community psychology at National Louis University.

Erica Siegal, LCSW is a harm reduction advocate, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist and community organizer. Erica has spent the past 20 years exploring diverse ways to create impactful, connective experiences while increasing community safety and wellness. She founded NEST Harm Reduction in 2019 to provide compassionate, trauma-informed services from individual psychotherapy to organizational consulting. She recently founded SHINE Collective, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting survivors of psychedelic harm and abuse. 

Frederica is a complexity enthusiast and an aficionado of transformational learning experiences. Fascinated by the ways that consciousness, worldviews and discourses change and expand, she has spent the past twenty years exploring the tools available to respond to civilizational crises, especially the modern West’s loss of the sacred. Frederica currently serves as Director of Psychedelic Practitioner Training at The Synthesis Institute. Prior to this, she served as Director of Education at Spiritual Directors International, designing professional development tools for advanced spiritual guides and companions. She recently appeared as a guest on the Waking the Wild and Tapped into Psychedelics podcasts, opining on training and certification of psychedelic practitioners. Frederica holds masters degrees from Yale Divinity School and the Yale School of the Environment, and a BA from Dartmouth College in Religion & Environmental studies. She has served as a Peace Corps volunteer, taught at the University of Washington and Seattle University, and worked as a global interfaith peacebuilder at the United Religions Initiative. She lives in Seattle with her husband and daughters. 

Graham Pechenik is a registered patent attorney and the founder of Calyx Law, a law firm specializing in cannabis and psychedelics related intellectual property. Graham has a BS from UC San Diego, where he chose his Cognitive Neuroscience and Biochemistry majors after his first psychedelic experiences inspired deep curiosity about the bases for changes in consciousness, and a JD from New York University, where he initially pursued interests in bioethics and cognitive liberty. After a decade at large law firms obtaining, defending, and challenging patents for Fortune 500 companies across the agricultural, chemical, pharmaceutical, biotech, and technology industries, including working on several landmark patent cases both at trial and on appeal, Graham started Calyx Law in 2016 as the first patent law boutique in California to focus on the cannabis industry. Currently Graham works with cannabis and psychedelics ventures to design and implement their IP strategies, and with venture funds to diligence investment opportunities in these spaces. Graham is also editor-at-large of Psychedelic Alpha, where he writes about psychedelics IP, provides data for patent trackers, and maintains a psychedelics legalization and decriminalization tracker, he is the founding steward of the IP Committee of the Psychedelic Bar Association, where he is also on the Board of Directors, and he is a member of Chacruna’s Council for the Protection of Sacred Plants. An Oakland, California native, Graham has been a longtime advocate of cannabis reform, since getting involved in the campaign for Proposition 215 in 1996. Graham currently lives in San Francisco.

Joe Moore co-founded Psychedelics Today in 2015 with Kyle Buller. As CEO, Joe has created one of the world’s best known psychedelic podcasts, blogs and training platforms. Joe combines twenty years of avid research and training in psychedelics with twenty years of experience in software and multinational project management. Joe is an expert in transpersonal breathwork and much sought after international speaker on the intersecting subjects of psychedelic medicine and healing, breathwork, drug policy, medical innovation, international justice and environmentalism.

Josh Hardman is Founder and Editor of Psychedelic Alpha, a newsletter, web resource and boutique consultancy. There, he spends most of his time exploring the curious intersection of psychedelics and business, sharing regular updates on the space and working with a group of subject-matter experts to maintain a number of free resources and datasets to help individuals and organizations make sense of this burgeoning field.

Julia Mande is a catalyzing facilitator for awareness-based systems change. She works with leaders to align strategy with values. Through Adapt to Complexity (A2C) she provides generative solutions to complex socio-environmental issues. Julia works with purpose-driven founders to launch and develop programs for meaningful social impact and has implemented programming in emerging sectors advancing soil health, plant medicine, conscious leadership, and decentralized management. Julia is a first-generation American, born in New York and raised in Zimbabwe, a daughter of emigrants from Morocco and the Jewish Diaspora. 

Justin Botillier is CEO of Calyx CPA LLC in Southern Oregon. Justin has sixteen years of experience working with small business owners. Prior to its recreational legalization, he was among the first accounting professionals to advocate for the cannabis industry actively and publicly. In 2016, Justin sold his general practice to work in cannabis full-time. He now works with the psychedelic community to prepare business owners for the tax impact of 280E on businesses in the psilocybin industry. His firm specializes in business advisory, entity formation, tax preparation, and tax planning for plant medicine companies. 

Katherine MacLean, PhD, is a writer, research scientist, mother, educator, and adventure-seeker. She has spent the past two decades studying the effects of mindfulness meditation (at UC Davis) and psychedelics (at John’s Hopkins). Her debut memoir about psychedelics, grief and parenthood – Midnight Water – is now available in print and audio formats.

Nicole Howell is one of California’s most effective and respected cannabis business and regulatory attorneys. Industry executives, private investors, and public companies turn to Nicole for her perspective and proven track record in advising the industry’s most successful operators through California’s challenging and dynamic market. She has been working against prohibitionist drug laws since the beginning of her career and is passionate about the cognitive, therapeutic, and spiritual healing that results from the perspective shift psychedelics provide. On the Founding Board of the The Psychedelic Bar Association, Nicole invites all who are interested to learn more.

Nykol Bailey Rice, CRNA, PMHNP, is educated as both a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (Westminster in Salt Lake City, UT) as well as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (University of Cincinnati, OH). She has been operating Boise Ketamine Clinic since 2015. She has personally facilitated thousands of ketamine infusions and is passionate about providing a high-quality, collaborative ketamine course. Nykol completed a full three-year board term for the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Practitioners and Psychoanalysts, where she helped to draft a set of standards and ethics for therapeutic ketamine use. Nykol then completed a year-long certificate program for non-ordinary states’ work with Integrative Psychiatry Institute. Her practice involves most routes of ketamine administration and various types of ketamine assisted therapy options.

Ricardo Baca is a 20-year veteran journalist and drug policy architect. He was appointed The Denver Post’s first-ever Cannabis Editor in 2013 and founded news vertical The Cannabist, where he extensively covered the advent of the U.S. adult-use cannabis market and related issues around the world, as seen in the feature documentary Rolling Papers. Ricardo launched Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency in 2016 to work directly with business leaders in cannabis, psychedelics and spirits. In 2023, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed Ricardo to the state’s first-ever Natural Medicine Advisory Board to contribute to policy development around the state’s eventual psychedelics framework.