Current Exeter Psychedelic PhD Projects

Project: Blaise is researching how human conceptions of, and interactions with, nature impact our sense of agency in addressing the climate crisis. This project combines insights from animistic cosmologies, Ecofeminism, and Critical Theory. Blaise is particularly interested in the potential of psychedelics to enhance experiences of nature-connectedness and illuminate understandings of the ecological self. 

Project: Caspar is studying how contemporary changes to Shipibo ayahuasca use, as a lens to explore how late-stage capitalist and global power structures are shaping animist cosmologies and Indigenous Amazonian ways of life.
Email: cm1233@exeter.ac.uk

Project: Naina’s project, Mapping Unitive States, develops a contemplative framework for psychedelic therapy grounded in the View, drawing from Mādhyamaka and the Nālandā tradition, and integrating ontology with phenomenology. She also created the Vedānta course in Exeter’s postgraduate programme in Psychedelics.

Email: n.gupta2@exeter.ac.uk

Project: Max’s research investigates the role of psychedelics in group-based settings, focusing on how these substances may enhance—or be enhanced by—relational and communal processes. Within this project, Max is leading a first-of-its-kind, placebo-controlled group psilocybin intervention to explore whether psilocybin within a community-based framework, can deepen social connection, engagement – and ultimately wellbeing in a group experiencing grief and loneliness.  

Email: mc1312@exeter.ac.uk

Project: Mark’s PhD is a comparative ethnography of a clinical trial, a Native American Peyote Church, and a free party rave group: using methods from the philosophical anthropology of experience he is comparing their values and ontologies in the hope of constructing a synthesis in psychedelic praxis between what have hitherto been typified as incommensurable epistemes – with theological, therapeutic, and pharmacological literacy.

Email: ms1390@exeter.ac.uk

Project: Joy’s project explores opioid system modulation as a strategy to optimise ketamine’s antidepressant, analgesic, and anti-suicidal effects while reducing potential harms.

Email: jk658@exeter.ac.uk

Project: Eirini’s PhD investigates how psychedelic experiences can challenge perceptions of normality and catalyse psychological transformation. Her thesis explores how individuals navigate the complex interplay between trauma and growth through processes of meaning-making, highlighting the role of adaptive resources. She combines pluralistic and transdisciplinary approaches to explore post-psychedelic worldview shifts (how we understand and relate to ourselves, others, and the world) and how these shifts may impact individual and collective wellbeing.

Email: e.k.argyri@exeter.ac.uk

Project: Cyrus’ PhD investigates peripheral physiology both as a target of psychedelic action, and a modulator of psychedelic outcomes. Drawing from Ayurvedic Medicine’s tridosha siddhantha, his work focuses on the gut microbiome, autonomic nervous system, and neuroendocrine system. His research explores how these systems may contribute to interindividual variability in treatment response and inform precision approaches within psychedelic medicine.

Email: c.willmott@exeter.ac.uk