Alex Belser, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychedelic researcher. In 2006 he co-founded the Psychedelic Research Group at NYU, whose trials of psilocybin-assisted therapy for cancer-related anxiety and depression helped reopen this field of study. Since then, he has served as an investigator or study therapist on clinical trials of psilocybin, MDMA, DMT, and ketamine, including the MAPS Phase 3 trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, and a placebo-controlled study of psilocybin for OCD at Yale.
As Chief Clinical Officer of Cybin and of Adelia Therapeutics, he led clinical development programs for psilocybin and DMT analogues; that work contributed to an FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation, and involved regulatory meetings with the FDA, Health Canada, and the UK's MHRA. He was the founding President of Nautilus Sanctuary, an early nonprofit center for psychedelic medicine on the East Coast, and serves as Senior Advisor for Strategy and Programs to Healing Hearts, Changing Minds, a foundation funding LGBTQ+ psychedelic research and practice, psychedelic end-of-life care, and the translation of peak experiences into durable prosocial action.
His research appears in journals including Nature Medicine (2025), and has been reported on by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and NPR, and described in Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind. He is the co-creator of the EMBARK approach to psychedelic therapy, co-editor of Queering Psychedelics, and a longtime advocate for LGBTQIA+ people in psychedelic science.
He is a student of somatic practices, a licensed kundalini and hatha yoga teacher, a powerlifter, a dancer, a singer, and a meditation practitioner. He has an integrative practice in-person in Gramercy, Manhattan and also works remotely from his home in Brooklyn.
