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 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 (founding faculty member)
          Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health (2012-2025)
            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