Lee Kaiser was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin in the 1980’s and is a wildlife ecologist who has lived in various communities throughout the Americas. He has worked on permaculture projects, natural building endeavors, hosting and organizing events and retreats, performing surveys for conservation investigations, agricultural and natural medicine initiatives, conducting artesanal essential oil distillation, taking part in music production, volunteering in educational workshops, and generally participating in cultural, scientific, and international exchanges. Lee met Dennis in 2016 when they both were in Minnesota, and their mutual interests in Amazonian and Andean ecology and ethnography have kept them in contact over the years. He currently lives with his partner in Argentina, and has primarily lived over the last decade in Colorado, Minnesota, Perú, and México. His travels and experiences in foreign lands as well as living with people from many different cultural backgrounds have allowed for him to dive deep into a broad range of fields and settings, while also staying plugged into some broader networks of connectivity and interdisciplinary explorations.

Dr. Bruce Damer is a scientist working in the field of Astrobiology with his passion being working on the mystery of the origin of life and where life might arise in the universe. Back at our ESPD conference in 2022 he 'came out of the psychedelic scientist closet' in his talk 'Its High Time for Science'. This talk, at which I was sitting in the front row, sparked a movement that has today led to a new organization: the Center for MINDS (Multidisciplinary Investigation into Novel Discoveries and Solutions). MINDS is modeled on MAPS and seeks to go beyond psychedelics in therapeutics and bring online practices and tools to use them to catalyze creativity, in science, tech, design and even leadership.

McKenna Academy was there at the very beginning of MINDS and I am sure we will hear about where it is today, and a bit about its deep history back to the 1950s and 60s.

Deborah has published over 40 books through her publishing house Synergetic Press, Ltd. in global ecology, regenerative agriculture, ethnobotany, psychedelics, and social justice, since establishing it in 1984. In 1986, she was on the team that designed and built a large-scale closed ecological system, Biosphere 2, developing the publications and educational programs for the complex. In 1990, she started The Biosphere Press, an imprint of the Biosphere 2 project, producing a dozen books and a classroom curriculum for children on biospheres and biomes.

While at Biosphere 2, Deborah met Richard Evans Schultes, the grandfather of contemporary ethnobotany. She went on to publish his two books of photographs he made documenting people’s use of plant medicine in the NW Colombian Amazonia. Deborah is a director and VP of the U.S. non-profit, the Institute of Ecotechnics, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico at Synergia Ranch. The Institute owns the RV Heraclitus, an 84-foot ferrocement Chinese Junk design that sailed 270,000 miles around Planet Ocean, with two years up the Amazon on an ethnobotanical expedition inspired by Schultes (1980-1982). Deborah currently lives at Synergia Ranch organic farm and retreat center where she lives, contributes to the farm operations when she can, and continues publishing books.