Exploring What Science Can Tell Us About Psychedelics—and What Psychedelics Can Tell Us About Ourselves

Psychedelics are now at the center of a global conversation about mental health, religious mysticism, and even how we experience life and death. In Altered States—a new podcast from PRX and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics—host Arielle Duhaime-Ross explores the stories and debates about who should have access to psychedelics, who should profit from them, how they should be used, regulated, and experienced, and what they might offer to both individuals and society.

The story of psychedelics is no longer just a tale of renegade counter-culturalists. There are now hundreds of clinical studies underway and multiple startups waiting in the wings, hoping to capitalize on potential future drug approvals. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has designated MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin as “breakthrough therapies” for treating conditions including PTSD, anxiety disorders, treatment-resistant depression, and major depressive disorder.

In short, we’re on the brink of a medical psychedelic boom that will change everything from mental health care to the illicit drug trade. 

Join host Arielle Duhaime-Ross as they interrogate the promises and, just as important, the pitfalls of this new psychedelic era.

Listen to Altered States every Wednesday starting August 7, 2024.

Support for this podcast comes from the Start Something That Matters Foundation.

Editorial Team

Arielle Duhaime-Ross
Host

Arielle Duhaime-Ross is a science journalist, podcast host, and TV host based in Portland, Oregon. Their work has appeared on Vox, The Verge, Quartz, Scientific American, and on VICE News Reports, the outlet’s flagship news podcast, which they hosted for three years.

Duhaime-Ross was also the first climate change correspondent in American nightly TV news. They spent three years covering climate stories from around the world, for HBO’s VICE News Tonight. At VICE News, Duhaime-Ross later hosted a TV show called Queer Sports, as well as an award-winning podcast named A Show About Animals, which tackled the controversy surrounding ape language research in the 1970s and Koko, the gorilla.

Photo of Malia Wollan
Malia Wollan
Executive Producer

Malia Wollan is editor in chief of journalism projects at BCSP and director of the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Public Radio, New York Magazine, Fast Company,The Associated Press,PBS’s Frontline/World, and elsewhere.

Jocelyn Gonzalez
Executive Producer


Jocelyn Gonzales is executive producer of PRX Productions. Previously, she was executive producer of Studio 360, the Peabody Award-winning radio show and podcast. She produced the Popcast and Book Review podcasts at The New York Times for 10 years, and worked on podcasts for American Public Media, Hello Sunshine, and others. She has contributed reporting and production to outlets such as Radiolab and Marketplace. She’s produced audiobooks at Simon & Schuster Audio, and mixed independent films and animated shorts. Gonzales is a long-time faculty member of the film and TV department at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and is a senior producer and engineer at Feet In Two Worlds, an award-winning non-profit journalism program focused on reporting in immigrant communities.

Adizah Eghan
Senior Editor


An audio producer and editor with over ten years of experience in podcasting, public radio, and digital media, Adizah Eghan was most recently the executive producer of the podcast  VICE News Reports. Prior to VICE, she worked at The New York Times where she produced The Daily and 1619. Her work has also aired and been featured on Snap Judgment, Reveal, National Public Radio, KQED, and elsewhere. 

Jennie Cataldo
Senior Producer

Jennie Cataldo is an award-winning radio and podcast producer living in San Francisco. She has been producing audio stories and programs since 2011, including commercial and public radio programs, audio documentaries, short form audio series, specials and podcasts. Jennie has worked with clients such as the United States Library of Congress, NPR’s 1A, UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, as well as NOVA, Google, Patagonia and The Peabody Awards through her work with PRX. Her work has been recognized yearly at the New York Festivals International Radio Awards since 2015, where she won the Grand Award in 2022 and also serves as a Radio Awards Advisory Board member. She loves music, collects vinyl records, and drives a pastel yellow convertible because life is short.

Cassady Rosenblum
Associate Producer


Cassady Rosenblum is a journalist based in Taos, New Mexico. Last year, she was a Fellow at The New York Times, where she primarily edited guest essays for Opinion. In 2022, she was a Ferris-UC Berkeley Journalism Fellow, and wrote about Mormons finding a new faith in magic mushrooms. When she’s not producing Altered States, you can find her writing about psychedelics and spirituality for Rolling Stone or working on her new magazine, Thunder Perfect Mind. 

Edwin Ochoa
Project Manager


Edwin Ochoa is the director of partner operations at PRX. He has worked as project manager on productions such as Monumental, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, The Joy of Why, and Smithsonian Magazine’s There’s More to That. In addition to project management, Edwin works across the PRX portfolio of podcast and broadcast shows.