Social Neuroscience and Psychotherapy Lab

Mission Statement

SNAP Lab aims to maximize the benefits of therapeutic alliance and psychotherapy through the adjunct use of social psychopharmacology, such as oxytocin, MDMA, and psilocybin.

LEADERSHIP

Chris Stauffer, MD |

Director

Dr. Stauffer is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and dual board-certified in Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. He is an OHSU medical school alum and completed Adult Psychiatry Residency and an Advanced Neuroscience Research Fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Stauffer is an MDMA-assisted therapy supervisor, trainer, and educator, is a member of the Oregon Governor's Psilocybin Advisory Board, has served in curriculum development and teaching roles for many psychedelic training programs, and has served as a psychedelic subject matter expert for various federal agencies.

Alissa Bazinet, Phd

Dr. Bazinet is a licensed clinical psychologist with a professional background in both research and provision of clinical services. She received her PhD in 2013 from the University of California, San Diego & San Diego State University’s joint doctoral program in clinical psychology and completed a clinical internship and research postdoc at OHSU. She is a co-founder and the Director of Research and Development at Sequoia Center, a community nonprofit clinic offering sliding-scale ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and related services, with a focus on equitable access for members of historically marginalized populations. Dr. Bazinet’s previous research focused on understanding substance use and addiction through the lens of psychoneuroimmunology, as well as evaluating psychotherapeutic and biomedical interventions to aid in recovery from prolonged substance use. Her current research interests center on developing best practices and standards of care for the delivery of psychedelic-assisted therapies within medical and non-medical contexts. Dr. Bazinet serves on the board of the National Psychedelics Association and on the training subcommittee of the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board. She is a longtime lead volunteer with the Zendo Project and other organizations that provide crisis response, peer support and harm reduction services at music festivals and events.

Stephanie Rodriguez, Phd

Dr. Stephanie Rodriguez is a licensed clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor at OHSU. She earned her PhD in 2013 from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco. With over a decade of clinical experience, Dr. Rodriguez has dedicated her career to providing compassionate care to Veterans in various treatment settings. She specializes in treating Veterans with PTSD, complex trauma, and moral injury. Her extensive training includes Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, Written Exposure Therapy, and Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD. Dr. Rodriguez's commitment to addressing gender inequality in healthcare led to her selection and training as a VA Women’s Mental Health Champion. In that role, she advocated for implementing practices that support the mental health needs of women-identifying Veterans. She has also been a member of SOGI since 2018 and is committed to increasing access to equitable healthcare for LGBTQ+ Veterans. Her collaboration with Chaplaincy at the Portland VA led to an invitation to join the Dynamic Diffusion Network, a coalition of seven VA sites focused on innovative treatment for moral injury. Through that network, Dr. Rodriguez has played a role in establishing new approaches and best practices for treating moral injury at the national level. Dr. Rodriguez’s work emphasizes empowerment and healing within a community context, integrating intersectionality, culture, radical acceptance, and genuineness. With her experience in trauma recovery, she is enthusiastic about the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy to provide healing opportunities, particularly for individuals who have not found relief with other evidence-based therapies.

Rebecca Morris,BCC-MH

Chaplain Morris is a Board Certified Mental Health Specialty Chaplain who works primarily in a mental health outpatient setting. Rebecca is trained in MDMA-assisted therapy and is an ordained Buddhist, whose teachings are inspired by numerous indigenous and nature-based traditions. Her unique perspective equips her to cultivate mythic and archetypal transformation, and ceremonial initiations and rites of passage. Uniting these diverse understandings, her model of celebratory healing and soul-centered embodiment fosters compassion in individuals as they become comfortable in the mystery and paradox of life to embrace suffering. Rebecca is the granddaughter of a WWII infantry Veteran and was raised by Vietnam Veterans. She has experienced the interpersonal impact of combat trauma, PTSD, and moral injury, and is committed to preventive ethics—breaking the cycle of shame, violent communication, and hurtful actions that continue to impact individuals, families, and communities. Her vision is to help individuals discover their compassionate hearts and find ways to embody their own personal versions of kindness from the inside out.

Karin Gagnon

Karin Gagnon is a Grof-Certified Holotropic Breathwork Facilitator with over 35 years of experience facilitating workshops internationally. She has completed certification for the MAPS MDMA Therapy Program and now facilitates experiential breathwork workshops with new MDMA Therapist trainees. Karin is part of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association (APPA) Advisory Council and serves as Advisor and Mentor for a number of other non-profit organizations in her community.

Donny Reed

Donny Reed is a combat Veteran and someone who has lived with the struggles of PTSD and moral injury. Over the past four years, he has volunteered as a co-facilitator for several outpatient mental health groups. As a certified Peer Specialist, he has honed the ability to create authentic safe spaces for clients with PTSD, assists them with establishing trust and rapport with mental health practitioners, and has cultivated many meditation techniques and grounding strategies that he shares with clients on their healing journeys. In 2020, Donny completed the MAPS MDMA Therapy Training Program and currently works as a psychedelic facilitator with the SNaP Lab.

Dan Friedrich

Dan Friedrich is a study session facilitator with strong commitments to service, compassion, and humanity. As a Veteran himself, Dan has dedicated his career to supporting Veterans and underserved communities. Dan began his career volunteering as a Peer Support Specialist in moral injury and reintegration programs at VA Portland. In early 2020, Dan piloted and helped establish NAMI Connects, a peer support program within the Tri-Counties Providence Hospital’s Emergency Departments providing frontline services. He played a crucial role in developing community-based Veteran peer support programs at NAMI Multnomah where he also served as a Peer Supervisor. In this role, he focused on expanding the reach of peer support into multidisciplinary clinical teams, working to ensure that underserved and marginalized populations in Oregon receive the support they need. Dan continues this work through a SAMHSA-funded project at the SNaP Lab. With extensive experience integrating peer support into hospital environments and working closely with multidisciplinary teams, Dan is committed to enhancing the effectiveness of peer support programs and improving outcomes for those they serve.

Todd Korthuis, MD, MPH

Todd Korthuis is a general internist, addiction medicine physician, clinician scientist, and Navy Veteran who serves as Professor of Medicine and Head of Addiction Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). His research, continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2007, focuses on integration of novel addiction treatment and prevention strategies in diverse settings. He serves as Co-Principal Investigator of the Western States Node of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) that tests new treatment strategies for substance use disorders. Other recent studies include clinical trials of integrated medications for opioid use disorder and HIV care in North America and Vietnam, the Oregon HOPE peer engagement intervention to decrease overdose and increase hepatitis C treatment in rural communities, and the PEER-CM trial of peer-facilitated contingency management for people who use methamphetamine. In 2021, Dr. Korthuis was appointed to the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board that advises the state’s implementation of licensed psilocybin services. He also founded the Open Psychedelic Evaluation Nexus (OPEN) to assess the safety and outcomes of supervised psychedelic services. A complete list of his publications is available in MyBibliography.

Lab staff

Kevin Rothstein |

Lab Manager

Kevin has a background in science education and administration. He received his BS in Biology from Georgia Tech and MS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from UC Irvine. Through his experience as a teaching assistant and middle/high school teacher, and then later as an assistant principal and administrative coordinator, he has enjoyed the opportunity to connect with and support the people around him. Connections around the struggles of people from all aspects of his life have encouraged him to pursue opportunities in clinical trauma work. His goal is to continue education to explore the relationship between trauma and mental illness. He is particularly interested in how psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can help people work through traumatic experiences and associated trauma and mental illness.

Bianca Watt |

Research Coordinator

Bianca completed her BA in Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and Clinical Neuropsychiatry MSc at King's College London. She is currently working towards a career in psychedelic science with the goal of becoming a licensed clinical psychologist in the field of psychedelic research and medicine. She is interested in the potential therapeutic application of psychedelic assisted therapies as a transdiagnostic approach for mental health conditions including anxiety and depression, PTSD, substance use and addiction, and exploring altered states of consciousness. She is passionate about diversity, access and equity in the psychedelic space aspiring to help bridge the treatment gap between conducting research and implementing clinical interventions with an interest in trauma informed and culturally competent care for BIPOC individuals. She is a social justice and harm reduction advocate and volunteers with the People of Color Psychedelic Collective and Fireside Project as a psychedelic peer supporter.

Zoe Gupta |

research asst

Zoe completed her BA in Psychology from Columbia University. At Columbia, she studied co-rumination and attachment anxiety in adult romantic couples at the Columbia Couples Lab, and now, she assists at the SNAP Lab in running studies on using psychedelics to assist therapy for veterans with PTSD and depression. She also works at the PSU DYADIC Health Lab, where she contributes to studies of how interpersonal relationships influence health and well-being in the context of alcohol use, loneliness, and perceived partner responsiveness. Parallel to her research, she has also worked in peer counseling, sexual violence response, social work, and education. She is interested in how individuals’ relationships to those around them can both contribute to and buffer against psychopathology, and how interpersonal and psychedelic-assisted interventions can be used to support healing. When she’s not in lab, she enjoys swimming on the Portland Timberfish swim team, ceramics, cooking, and frequenting local movie theaters.

tyler king |

Research Asst

Tyler earned his BA in Psychology (University Honors) from Portland State University. Tyler plans to continue his education as a graduate student with a focus in Clinical Psychology and eventually earn either a PhD or PsyD. At the start of the pandemic, Tyler decided to leave his job as an in-home and group class personal trainer to go back to school and pursue a career in mental health and trauma recovery. After realizing many of his training sessions were becoming therapy sessions for his clients, he discovered he was more interested in supporting his clients emotionally rather than diet tracking or designing workouts for them. Tyler's primary field of interest is Data Equity in Mental Health research and the development of strategies for more diverse and representational participant data and is excited to be on a research team working to explore this area. Tyler's interests include writing short stories and poetry, video/board games, working out, knitting, and spending weekends on the couch watching movies with his husband, Eric.

libby alfieri |

research asst

Libby is an undergraduate student at Reed College pursuing a degree in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Science. They have always looked to nature to answer their questions, both philosophical and scientific, fostering a longtime interest in plants as medicinal and/or therapeutic interventions. Long-term, they hope to explore the integration of nature, music, and art into psychedelic interventions. Besides a fascination and respect for the Earth and what it has to offer, personal experiences have led Libby to be especially focused on harm reduction, as well as equitable, culturally competent, and accessible healthcare.

Sabine Fraley |

research asst

Sabine is a third-year undergraduate student at Reed College pursuing a degree in neuroscience with a minor in music. Stemming from her upbringing in a small community in the Santa Cruz mountains, her love for nature and alternative medicine has only grown over time. She has always known plants to be a healing force and is passionate about dedicating her future career to honoring and applying this knowledge. She aspires to continue research in psychedelic therapy, and eventually obtain a nurse practitioner license in integrative medicine, with an emphasis on health equity and treatment accessibility.

Victoria Hutchinson |

research asst

Victoria is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Reed College pursuing a degree in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Science and a minor in English. Raised amidst the lush beauty of Oregon's landscapes, she developed a profound appreciation for the harmonious connection between humanity and nature. She aspires to further her education in Clinical Psychology, pioneering treatments for psychiatric disorders. Her vision includes integrating natural and scientific approaches to foster innovative and effective therapeutic methods, with a commitment to equity and the protection of marginalized groups. Outside academia, Victoria finds joy in the simplicity of reading and the outdoors, where she embarks on adventures with her girlfriend and their cat.

Fish Raven-Fish |

research asst

Ravenfish (or Fish) is a Senior Psychology major at Reed College. They are concentrating in computational sciences and are very interested in the psychopharmacological benefits of alternative medications. After undergrad, they are planning on pursuing a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner’s license in order to follow their passion for therapeutic use of psychedelics. Outside of academic pursuits, they love to write music and play guitar, take care of their many plants, and cook elaborate meals with their friends.

trainees

Jenna Kachmarik |

Phd candidate

Jenna is honored and excited to be part of OHSU’s Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program under the mentorship of Dr. Chris Stauffer and Dr. Jennifer Loftis. Previously, she was a volunteer research associate in a biobehavioral research lab exploring the bidirectional relationship between mental and physical health in the context of stress. Additionally, several years of working in pharmacy has granted her insight into the benefits and pitfalls of a medical model primarily focused on symptom management. Together her research, work, and personal healing experiences have oriented her interests toward the field of health psychology as well as addressing and healing root causes for both mental and physical conditions. Jenna is interested in the power of psychedelic experiences to help participants unlock their own capacity for physical and emotional healing; she aspires to become a practitioner of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. She is deeply curious about the potential for psychedelics to improve chronic health conditions (e.g., autoimmune disorders) and potential mechanisms therein. As a graduate student, she will have the unique opportunity to combine her dual passions for health psychology and psychedelic research/therapy by investigating outcomes of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy from a psychoneuroimmunological lens.

Ayanna Bell |

phd Student

Ayanna is a current Clinical Psychology PhD student under the mentorship of Dr. Kathleen Carlson, Dr. Jeni Johnstone, and Dr. Chris Stauffer. She was born in Hawai’i and raised in Georgia. She earned her B.S. in Neuroscience with a minor in Artificial Intelligence at Agnes Scott College. There she was an undergraduate research assistant in numerous labs exploring novel methods to treat neurological diseases and psychiatric disorders. Her research interests include providing culturally competent care to those seeking psychiatric treatment, sociobehavioral impacts on human health, innovative initiatives for health, mindfulness and meditation, the utilization of micronutrients to treat symptoms related to psychiatric disorders, and exploring psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

Philip Bouleh |

phd Student

Philip is currently a Clinical Psychology PhD student at OHSU under the mentorship of Dr. Chris Stauffer. He was born in Amman, Jordan and grew up in Lebanon before immigrating to the United States in 2004 with his family. He graduated in 2020 from Portland State University with a B.S. in philosophy/psychology. His passion is to help individuals who have experienced life in conflict-affected settings (e.g., Refugees, Veterans) build resilience and find healing. Philip is involved in multiple research projects such as MDMA-assisted group therapy for PTSD and psilocybin-enhanced psychotherapy for methamphetamine use disorder in Veterans. Broadly, Philip is interested in the role of epistemic trust, attachment security and spirituality/metaphysical beliefs in the context of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy — including how any changes in these domains may relate to psychological well-being and psychopathology.

Aaron Brah |

phd Student

Aaron received his Bachelors of Psychological Science in 2016 from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and went on to work as a therapist and lecturer at Australia’s Malvern Private Hospital specializing in substance use interventions for individuals and families. In 2018, Aaron moved to Seattle where he pursued a Masters in Psychology at Seattle University. He was trained as an existential-phenomenological psychotherapist, worked at a residential substance use treatment facility and also as a research assistant at University of Washington’s (UW) Harm Reduction Research and Training (HaRRT) laboratory. There he studied patient-driven goal selection processes for individuals with alcohol use disorder in Seattle’s housing-crisis population. Aaron then spent 2 years as a Research Coordinator at UW’s Department of Medicine, coordinating a multi-site, international R01 grant between Seattle, Atlanta, and Kenya. Aaron worked alongside a team of health economists, clinical psychologists, and epidemiologists to perform a Discrete Choice Experiment which sought to understand medical decision-making processes for people living with HIV (PLWH). As a doctoral candidate at OHSU in the clinical psychology PhD program Aaron studies substance use relapse, impulsivity, and substance use decision-making. Aaron has a long-standing interest in how psychedelic science may help scientist-practitioners better understand how mystical/psychedelic experience may lend itself to sustained recovery for people with serious substance use disorders. Aaron will be serving as a clinical assessor on the latest study investigating MDMA-facilitated group therapy for veterans with PTSD.

Alex Molina, MD |

Psychiatric Resident

Alejandro is completing his psychiatry residency training at Oregon Health & Sciences University. He currently serves as a study physician for SNaP Lab clinical trials. He previously worked as a Night Attendant at the MAPS Phase II/III MDMA-assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD clinical trial site in his hometown of New Orleans while completing medical school. He also served as a research assistant under Dr. Charles Nichols in the LSU Department of Pharmacology, investigating the anti-depressant properties of psilocybin and ketamine using animal behavioral models, as well their effects on a cellular level by measuring neuronal transcription factors in vitro. He completed the MAPS MDMA Therapy Training Program in 2021. He is interested in drug-policy reform, developing best-practices for safely incorporating psychedelics into clinical psychiatry, the role of music in psychedelic therapy, and the cultural aspects of entheogen use across human history.

Jess Gibly, QMHP |

Masters of social work Intern

Jess Gibly has her Masters in Crisis and Trauma Studies from Tel Aviv University and is in her last year of her Masters in Social Work from Portland State University. She is a current Social Work Intern at the VA, supporting recently homeless Veterans transition into and maintain housing. Working with Veterans for over 8 years and individuals experiencing homelessness since 2005, she has witnessed the everyday impact that trauma and PTSD have on individuals’ lives and the ripple effects it has on their communities. Once licensed, she would like to focus on trauma therapy, with the hope of integrating psychedelic assisted therapy to support clients in alternative ways. She is excited about the new possibilities that such therapies offer for disrupting the cycle of intergenerational trauma and is particularly passionate about increasing equitable access to treatment. When not studying, she likes to go hiking and find pretty rocks in nature to polish, build Lego and hang out on the couch with her two cats.