Biosketch

I teach biology, psychology, and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley, where I have been on the faculty in molecular and cell biology for more than 30 years. For more than a decade I worked in the clinical treatment of addiction and of post-traumatic-stress disorder at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in San Francisco. And since 2003, I have been teaching neuroscience and conversing about science with Tibetan Buddhist monastics in India, Bhutan, and Nepal. I have a doctorate in molecular biology from Caltech, and another in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon. My areas of expertise include human neurobiology and psychopharmacology, and expanding the paradigm for the scientific study of mind.

David Presti Photo

University of California, Berkeley, Affiliations:
  Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
    Program in Cognitive Science
      Department of Psychology
        UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics

          Berkeley Food Institute
            UCB Academic Senate: Student Affairs Committee, Undergraduate Council,
                and Divisional Council (2010 to 2016)
                  Bowles Hall Residential College (Board of Directors, since 2014)

                        Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health (since 2012)