The Future of Psychedelic Education is Bright 🌞
Originally published July 17, 2026.
This week, we (Ali & Justin) virtually attended the University Psychedelic Education Program (U-PEP) training at USONA via the Psychedelic Education Partnership. We experienced three full days of presentations, discussions, and panels that will support AppCoLab's outreach and education initiatives—and we made connections with inspiring leaders working at similar inflection points in the space.
We were selected to be Community Fellows in this year's cohort, learning alongside Faculty Fellows from 45 universities across 26 states and U.S. territories. U-PEP serves faculty and researchers in social work, nursing, psychology, medicine, counseling, and public health, and the program has been able to expand every year. Funded philanthropically by the Joe and Sandy Samberg Foundation, the initiative bridges the worlds of psychedelic healthcare and innovation and higher education / workforce training.
Here's how our days went down:
Monday: Foundations, History, Ethics & Representation
After an orientation to the program and U-PEP / USONA more specifically, presentations focused on the cultural and historical origins of psychedelics, an overview of clinical psychedelic care, the clinical research landscape, ethics, and representation and inclusion.
Tuesday: Public Health, Risk Literacy, Operations & Mechanisms
We went deeper into special topics, including workforce bottlenecks, adverse events, ketamine practice operations, mechanisms and biology plus therapy, and dosing and integration practices.
Wednesday: Curriculum Building, Training Tools & Lived Experience
The day opened with a Year 2 Fellows panel where we heard about the incredible work members of the previous U-PEP cohort is up to (including our friend + AppCoLab supporter Dr. Genesia Kilgore-Bowling from the University of Pikeville).
Then, founders of Sabba and Fireside Project introduced us to their AI simulations (Sabba Praxis and Lucy) for psychedelic skills training.
The afternoon continued with discussions of peer support and education partnerships in action.
Thursday: Next Steps & Closing Panel
We wound down on Thursday morning with a fascinating talk on clinical pharmacology, followed by a closing panel that discussed how scaling up psychedelic medicine could result in a compression of care—and ways to counteract that.
We are excited to bring all we learned back to our work in Appalachia, and to see how relationships built through U-PEP will continue to evolve (we have some exciting things to share on the horizon!).
If you're interested in joining the next cohort, you can find out more here. Plus: they have also launched C-PEP for clinicians.