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 a decade (1990-2000) 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 engaged in dialogue and education on science with Tibetan Buddhist monastic communties in India, Bhutan, and Nepal. I have doctorates in molecular biology from Caltech and in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon, and I am author of the books Foundational Concepts in Neuroscience: A Brain-Mind Odyssey (Norton, 2016) and Mind Beyond Brain: Buddhism, Science, and the Paranormal (Columbia, 2018), and of the public-education course Psychedelics and the Mind (edX, 2023).

University of California, Berkeley, Affiliations:
  Department of Neuroscience
    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)