Facilitators

Angella Okawa is a multicultural executive coach and psychotherapist dedicated to creating transformative spaces across industries including design, tech, healthcare, and non-profit sectors. She brings an interdisciplinary approach informed by her experience in tech startups, design thinking, and mindfulness. Angella's training includes Integral Coaching and Facilitation, the Hakomi Method, MAPS MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, and work with BCSP's Psychedelic Facilitator Program. As a conflict facilitator and bridge-builder, her mission is to cultivate environments where differences become thresholds for liberation and collaboration.

Amy Emerson became the CEO of MAPS Public Benefit Corporation when it was formed in 2014 to develop and commercialize prescription psychedelics, starting with MDMA-assisted therapy for those with post-traumatic stress disorder. She lead the company until 2024 including through it's transition to Lykos Therapeutics. Amy has decades of pharmaceutical development and research experience and has brought products from Phase 1 studies through FDA approval. From 1993 to 2009, she worked in various fields including immunology, oncology, and vaccines.

Robert Jesse was instrumental in forming the psilocybin research team at Johns Hopkins and has co-authored several of its papers, including “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance” (2006). In 2017, Bob led the drafting of a public statement, signed by numerous leaders in the field, raising Open Science as a psychedelic ideal. In 2005, he led the writing of an amicus brief for the U.S. Supreme Court in the União do Vegetal religious liberty case, decided 8-0 favoring the church. In 1995, he led the development of a Code of Ethics for Spiritual Guides (csp.org/code).

Grace feels a deep calling to “hold holders” in their resiliency journey as they do their most aligned and sacred work. With over 20 years of experience—directing a nonprofit, managing wellness and mental health clinics, and supporting those in high-stakes environments through secondary trauma resiliency work—she has dedicated her career to equipping others with the tools to sustain themselves in their calling. For decades, she has walked an eclectic and immersive spiritual path, driven by an insatiable desire to understand the deepest nature of consciousness. As both an artist and an advocate for creative genius, she sees imagination and intuition as vital forces in reshaping how we approach healing, leadership, and transformation.

Josef is an entrepreneur, educator and investor. He founded and led the Stanford Design School (d.school) for over a decade and now works globally with leaders to unlock creative impact at scale. He also advises investors and philanthropists stewarding conscious portfolios toward impact with harmonic and regenerative cascades. He is passionate about cultivating ecosystems that work more like living systems than industrial ones, supporting humans to move in their most natural way and advancing research and practice at the intersection of creativity, consciousness and resilience.

Jennifer Davis is a seasoned facilitator and management consultant based in Ottawa, Canada, with over 20 years of experience leading complex, multi-stakeholder engagements. She specializes in facilitating dialogues among Indigenous rightsholders, government, industry, and researchers to navigate policy, environmental, and innovation challenges. As President of SystemShift Inc., Jennifer has designed and led high-impact workshops and negotiations across Canada, tackling topics such as

science and innovation policy, regulatory risk management, environmental governance, and braiding different knowledge systems. She excels in cross-organizational problem-solving, structuring adaptive engagement processes that foster trust, clarity, and action. Jennifer holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Environmental Science, and a certification in Change Management. At this Summit, she brings her expertise in guiding technical and values-driven discussions to help participants align on priorities and chart a path forward.

Kenneth Tupper, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Child & Youth Care at the University of Victoria. Kenneth’s doctoral research developed the concept of “entheogenic education,” a theoretical frame for understanding how psychedelic plants and substances can function as cognitive tools for learning. His current research interests include: psychedelic studies; the cross-cultural and historical uses of drugs; public, professional and school-based drug education; and creating healthy public policy to maximize benefits and minimize harms from psychoactive substances. He has published in numerous peer reviewed academic journals, presented at international health and drug policy conferences, and has twice been appointed to Canadian delegations to high-level United Nations international drug policy meetings.

Mara is a social innovation and civic engagement leader, with a career that has spanned government, philanthropy, and entrepreneurship. She weaves networks, connecting people across disciplines to solve complex global and national challenges.

Most recently she served as Director of Impact Partnerships for Unfinished, a philanthropic group dedicated to a more ethical, equitable digital future. She also co-founded the U.S. Census Bureau’s first innovation lab, Census Open Innovation Labs, where she focused on creating modern and culturally-relevant approaches to reaching hard-to-count communities for the 2020 Census, as well as working with the private sector to develop digital tools for the public good. Previously, she led innovation partnerships for the Nike Foundation, co-founded an incubator in Cuba, and worked with citizen journalists in war zones to help them tell their stories to a global audience.

Megan is a dedicated coach, facilitator, and leader who brings a mission-driven, human-centered approach to her work. In her recent role as Interim Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association and formerly Head of Workshop Programming at Esalen Institute, she has led organizations through complex transitions while fostering cultures of warmth, transparency, and effectiveness. Passionate about personal growth and community impact, Megan has been a longtime advocate for psychedelic medicine.

Miriam Volat, MS, serves as Co-Director with Cody Swift of the Riverstyx Foundation, Executive Director of the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative, strategic Relations Director of the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, and she is on the Board of Directors of MAPS. The RiverStyx team undertakes deeply engaged relational philanthropy supporting social justice, addressing mental, spiritual, and ecological crises through biocultural responsibility; and respectful allyship with Indigenous traditional knowledge holders. Miriam Volat works personally and professionally to promote health in all systems. Her background is as a complex systems-facilitator, soil scientist, educator, and community organizer. Her work aims to increase broad-based community and ecological resilience through supporting high leverage initiatives at the intersection of biological, socio-cultural, and psycho-spiritual diversity.

Rae Richman is a seasoned philanthropic and social impact leader with more than twenty years of experience providing strategic consulting and facilitation skills to organizations of all sizes, including family and corporate foundations, leading nonprofits and a wide range of Fortune 500 global corporations. Rae has been professionally engaged in the psychedelic space since leading atai Impact, the philanthropic arm of atai Life Sciences, and now advises individual and family funders supporting an effective, ethical, and accessible psychedelic ecosystem. A founding board member of Burning Man Project, she currently serves on the board of Friends of the Earth US.

Reva Patwardhan, PCC, founder of Greater Good Coaching, specializes in helping nonprofit leaders build careers and manage teams that make a big impact, without burning anyone out. She's worked with leaders up, down, and across the organizational ladder: From CEOs and EDs to senior and middle managers to front line organizers. She has 25 years of broad experience in the nonprofit sector. She teaches a course in Coaching Skills for Nonprofit Leaders through Cal State East Bay's Nonprofit Management Certificate program. Reva helps facilitate interpersonal learning groups with the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She serves on the Board of Directors at Rethink Media, and served as chair for 6 years. She serves on the coaching and consulting faculties of the SEIU BOLD Center, Leaderspring, and LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics). She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), a certified Integral Coach, and a Level 4 certified Aletheia coach.

Dr. Stephanie Michael Stewart is a psychiatrist specializing in ecological medicine, weaving together nature-based healing, psychedelic therapies, and social and environmental justice in her practice. With a strong emphasis on women’s mental health, she is dedicated to community-driven care and the belief that mental, ecological, and collective well-being are deeply interconnected. Dr. Stewart is a Board Member at the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, and is also involved with UCLA’s Ecological Medicine and Psychedelic Studies Initiative, bridging environmental healing with psychedelic research. Her training includes certification in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy through MAPS and psychedelic therapies and research through the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). She holds a BS in Biology from Spelman College and an MD from Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Stewart has been deeply engaged in psychedelic healing and research since the late 1980s, bringing a multidisciplinary, justice-oriented, and deeply integrative approach to mental physical spiritual and social care. Healing the mind depends on healing our connection to nature, community, and ourselves.

Tom is a designer and the founder of the (tbd) collective, a social innovation design practice that is determined to impact the world’s toughest problems by designing solutions that work at the scale of the need. Tom is also the initiator of the ECHO UNDRGRND, a calling and a way to cultivate our innate gifts as we regenerate our natural habitat. Previously the Global Design Innovation Director at the NIKE Foundation and a NIKE Global Design Director for Football (Soccer), Tom can be found out there amidst the forests of Oregon somewhere between the volcanic mountains and primordial ocean, listening for the song.