Inaugural
Psychedelic Awards
Tickets
Reserve Your Place
Join us October 10th at the Chorus Theater in San Francisco for an inaugural evening of recognition, conversation, and community.
Space for the 2026 Psychedelic Awards Ceremony is limited, and attendance is by invitation. To be considered for access to purchase a ticket, please fill out this form.
awards
Recognizing Research, Generosity, and Storytelling
Pioneer Award
Some contributions to a field can't be measured in papers published or trials completed. This award honors an individual whose life's work has fundamentally shaped how we understand psychedelics: their science, their therapeutic potential, and their place in human experience. A body of work that the field stands on.
Philanthropy Award
Behind every landmark study, every translated book, and every institution that has kept this work alive, there is someone who believed before the results were in. This award honors a funder whose sustained generosity has helped build the infrastructure of the field.
Education & Literacy Award
The science only travels as far as the stories that carry it. This award honors a work of film, publishing, journalism, or public education that has brought psychedelic knowledge to audiences who might never have encountered it otherwise. Expanding understanding, dissolving stigma, and making the conversation bigger.
Honorees
Speaking at the Inaugural Ceremony
Stanislav Grof
Psychiatrist, researcher, and one of the founding figures of transpersonal psychology. Grof's decades of work with LSD and non-ordinary states of consciousness laid the groundwork for how the field understands healing, trauma, and the depths of human experience. His development of Holotropic Breathwork extended that inquiry beyond psychedelics entirely.
Betsy Gordon
A longtime philanthropist and cultural preservationist in the psychedelic space, Betsy Gordon has supported some of the field's most important institutional work — from the Heffter Research Institute to the Psychoactive Substances Research Collection at Purdue University. She serves on the board of CIIS and has helped ensure that the field's history and scholarship are not lost.
Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk
Co-founders of Actual Films, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk have spent more than 25 years making documentaries that bring urgent human stories to wide audiences through Netflix, HBO, ESPN, and PBS. Their body of work has earned Emmy and Peabody Awards and an Academy Award nomination. Their 2024 film In Waves and War follows combat veterans who found healing through psychedelic-assisted therapy after conventional treatments failed, and is now streaming on Netflix.
Michael & Annie Mithoefer
Two of the most respected clinicians in MDMA-assisted therapy, the Mithoefers have been central to the MAPS clinical trials and have helped define what ethical, effective psychedelic therapy looks like in practice.
Rick Doblin
Rick Doblin, Ph.D., is the founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise healthy people, and eventually to become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist.
Janis Phelps
Janis Phelps, PhD, is a leader in the field of psychedelic therapy training as the Director of the Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies Center. As the Center’s founder, Dr. Phelps developed and launched the first university accredited, post- graduate training program for psychedelic therapy and research.
Chris Bache
Philosopher, professor, and author of LSD and the Mind of the Universe, Chris Bache has spent decades exploring the deeper dimensions of psychedelic experience through the lens of consciousness studies and cosmology. His work sits at the intersection of science, spirituality, and the nature of existence itself.
Charlie Grob
A psychiatrist and professor at UCLA, Charles Grob was among the first researchers to conduct FDA-approved studies of psychedelics in the modern era, including landmark work on psilocybin for end-of-life anxiety in cancer patients. His early clinical courage helped establish the evidentiary foundation the field now builds on.
Roger Walsh
A psychiatrist, philosopher, and professor at UC Irvine, Roger Walsh has spent decades bridging the worlds of medicine, consciousness studies, and contemplative traditions. His scholarship has helped articulate what psychedelic experience means in the broader context of human development, spirituality, and mental health.
Bill Richards
A psychologist at Johns Hopkins and one of the longest-serving researchers in the field, Bill Richards has worked with psychedelics in therapeutic and spiritual contexts for over five decades. His book Sacred Knowledge remains one of the most thoughtful explorations of the intersection of psychedelics, mystical experience, and healing.
Diane Haug
A senior trainer in Holotropic Breathwork and a steward of the Grof Legacy Project, Diane Haug has dedicated her career to preserving and transmitting the therapeutic and spiritual frameworks developed by Stanislav Grof. Her work ensures that decades of hard-won knowledge continue to reach the next generation of practitioners.
Sylver Quevedo
An associate professor of medicine at UCSF and founder of the Open Mind Collective, Sylver Quevedo works at the intersection of psychedelic medicine, clinical practice, and community care. Her work brings a rigorous and humane lens to the integration of psychedelics into mainstream healthcare.
Bob Jesse
Founder of the Council on Spiritual Practices, Bob Jesse played a quiet but pivotal role in reopening psychedelic research in the United States, helping facilitate the landmark Johns Hopkins psilocybin studies. A behind-the-scenes architect of the modern renaissance.
Adele Getty
Co-founder of the Limina Foundation and author of A Sense of the Sacred, Adele Getty has spent decades at the intersection of ceremony, animism, and psychedelic healing. Her work bridges indigenous wisdom, ritual practice, and the emerging conversation around psychedelic-assisted therapy, bringing a depth of cultural and spiritual perspective that the field rarely finds in one place.
Judie Wexler
President Emerita of the California Institute of Integral Studies, Judie Wexler served CIIS for nearly two decades, shepherding the institution through a period of significant growth and helping establish it as a leading home for psychedelic therapy education and research. Her leadership helped make CIIS what it is today.
Partners
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