Biosketch

I teach biology, psychology, and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley, where I have been on the faculty 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 communities in India, Bhutan, and Nepal. I have doctorates in molecular biology from Caltech and in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon, and 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
    Program in Cognitive Science
      Department of Psychology
        UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics
          Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health (since 2012)
            Berkeley Food Institute
              Bowles Hall Residential College (Board of Directors, since 2014)
                Department of Molecular and Cell Biology (1991-2024)
                  UCB Academic Senate (2010-2016): Undergraduate Council, Student Affairs Committee,
                     and Divisional Council