Joshua Woolley

Joshua D. Woolley, MD, PhD, is an academic psychiatrist and clinician-scientist based at the University of California, San Francisco, where he directs the Translational Psychedelic Research Programme. He has a clinical and research background spanning psychopharmacology, neuropsychiatry and experimental therapeutics, and his work bridges clinical trials, naturalistic observational studies and qualitative methods to evaluate therapeutic potential, mechanisms and safety of psychedelic compounds.

Woolley's recent contributions include open-label and dose-escalation clinical research into psilocybin-assisted therapy for bipolar II depression, qualitative analyses of self-reported psilocybin use among people with bipolar disorder, and prospective naturalistic studies of ayahuasca examining outcomes such as gratitude, relationship with nature and aesthetic experience. He has also engaged in translational work assessing risk–benefit considerations for psychedelic use in mood disorders and contributed editorial and collaborative scholarship on the evolving clinical landscape for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. His methodological approach emphasises careful safety assessment, mixed methods outcome measurement and pathway-oriented translational frameworks for moving compounds from bench to bedside.