What helps people heal, and who gets studied.
My research asks what helps psychedelic-assisted therapy work beyond the drug itself, and who gets left out of the answer.
For most of my career I've moved between the therapy room and the research lab. My scholarship focuses on social support and therapeutic alliance in mental health and psychedelic-assisted therapy, and on equity, liberation, and access, particularly for LGBTQIA+, gender-expansive, and Spanish-speaking communities who are too often left out of this research.
I completed my PhD in Social Work at The Ohio State University in 2026, with an emphasis on social support in psychedelic therapy research. I've worked as a study therapist on two psilocybin-assisted therapy clinical trials, and I've been part of psychedelic research teams since 2016, mostly in collaboration with Alan K. Davis, PhD, and colleagues.
People get better in connection.
Relationship as a mechanism
The most consistent finding I've come across, in the clinic and in the data, is that people get better in connection. My dissertation work tests that idea directly: whether changes in perceived social support help explain why meaningful psychedelic experiences are followed by better mental health, in LGBTQIA+ adults using psychedelics in naturalistic settings and in veterans with PTSD in a psilocybin trial.
Earlier work with the same team found that the strength of the therapeutic alliance between participants and facilitators was associated with acute effects and clinical outcomes in a psilocybin trial for major depressive disorder.
Key work: Levin et al., 2024, PLOS ONE · two dissertation manuscripts in preparation · All papers on this theme →
Clinical trials and the therapeutic container
I've worked inside two psilocybin-assisted therapy trials as a clinician and research team member: screening participants, providing preparation and integration, co-guiding dosing sessions, and contributing to protocol development.
Psilocybin therapy for veterans with PTSD
Open-label proof-of-concept trial. Clinician and research assistant. I contributed to the protocol, measure selection, and analytic strategy, and I designed the session music playlist and led its validation.
Protocol (BMJ Open, 2023) · Outcomes (Communications Medicine, 2026) · Playlist (Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 2026)
Psilocybin therapy for non-small cell lung cancer with major depressive disorder
Open-label Phase II proof-of-concept trial. Study facilitator and research assistant. Screening, preparation and integration, co-guiding sessions, and protocol work.
Protocol paper under review.
Alongside the trials, I study the extrapharmacological side of psychedelic therapy: the music, setting, preparation, and support that surround a dose and shape what happens. That includes an ecological systems scoping review of how these factors are measured and reported, now in preparation, and earlier work on supportive context and benefit-enhancement strategies.
Equity, access, and liberation
Psychedelic science has mostly studied a narrow slice of people. I was co-principal investigator, with Alan Davis, on a survey of LGBTQIA+ people who use psychedelics outside clinical settings, built with community input from design through recruitment. I've also collaborated on studies of gender-based self-acceptance and of trans and gender-expansive people's concerns about colonization, racism, and medicalization in psychedelic science.
As a heritage Spanish speaker, I've worked on translating and validating core psychedelic measures into Spanish and on studies of Spanish-speaking people who use psychedelics. I'm also writing, with colleagues, on liberation perspectives in psychedelic research methodology.
Key work: Lancelotta et al., 2025 · Gaughan et al., 2025 · Gaughan et al., 2026 · Davis et al., 2023 · All papers on this theme →
5-MeO-DMT and naturalistic use
My research career started with 5-MeO-DMT, when very little was known about it. I worked on some of the first studies of who uses it and why, the intensity of its mystical effects compared with psilocybin, its associations with mood and wellbeing, biomarkers after use, and the "reactivations" some people report afterward. Related work looked at naturalistic mescaline use.
That research has always run alongside harm reduction. Since 2017 I've run 5meodmt.org, an online community for 5-MeO-DMT harm reduction and peer support, and I wrote on the danger of combining 5-MeO-DMT with MAOIs.
Key work: Davis et al., 2018 · Barsuglia et al., 2018 · Lancelotta, 2022 · Reckweg et al., 2022 · All papers on this theme →
Methods and skills
- Clinical trial protocol development and measure selection
- Survey design and deployment, including community-based participatory input
- Quantitative analysis, including mediation and secondary analysis of trial data
- Scoping reviews
- Translation and validation of measures into Spanish
- Psychedelic session music design and validation
- Participant screening, preparation, dosing support, and integration
- GCP (FDA and social-behavioral), human subjects, and RCR certified (CITI)
Building something in this field?
Research teams, training programs, and organizations reach out for protocol support, training, and talks. Tell me what you're working on.