Toward a Science of Consciousness 2012

SATURDAY, April 14

PLENARY  11

KATHERINE MACLEAN

Katherine MacLean, PhD

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Katherine MacLean received her bachelor's degree at Dartmouth College where she completed a two-year research stint recording brain activity in rhesus monkeys. Heeding the call to study the neuroscience of consciousness more directly, she transitioned to human research for her graduate work at the University of California, Davis. There she worked with Ron Mangun on studies of visual attention and with Cliff Saron on the Shamatha Project - a longitudinal study of changes in behavior and brain function during intensive meditation training. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology in the Fall of 2009 and subsequently joined the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit within the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as a postdoctoral fellow. For the past two years, she has been working with Roland Griffiths and Matthew Johnson on laboratory studies of the psychological and behavioral effects of psilocybin and other hallucinogens (Salvia divinorum). In her ongoing research, she has been investigating the intersection between psilocybin and meditation, including potential brain mechanisms and therapeutic applications.