George Fejer Zuri Maria Daiss Stratos Bichakis Timo Torsten Schmidt Cyril Costines Pawel Motyka Keisuke Suzuki Till Holzapfel Jonas Mago Mar Estaralles Andrés Gomez Emilsson Taru Emilia Hirvonen Raimonds Jermarks Alfredo Parra James W. Sanders Kazuya Horibe Hector Taylor Aline Frick Antoine Bellemare Tobias Buchborn Vince Polito Noah Clark Kezia Chuaqui Natalia Santander Philipp Thölke Vismay Agrawal Michael Lifshitz Yutaka Makino Romy Beauté France Lerner

This event is made possible through the support of
the Qualia Research Institute

George Fejer | Lead organizer

George Fejer is a PhD candidate in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Konstanz and a coordinator for the ALIUS research network, specializing in altered states of consciousness. His research focuses on bioresponsive VR interfaces to study breathwork-induced consciousness shifts, particularly the extension of peripersonal space in altered states through the Viscereality project. With a Master’s in Cognitive Neuropsychology, he is currently conducting research at the Max Planck Institute for Brain & Cognitive Sciences, integrating neuroscience and psychology to explore the interplay between embodiment, virtual reality, and consciousness.

Zuri Maria Daiss | Head of Operations, Logistics & Festivities

Zuri Maria Daiß is a cultural curator, organizer, and strategist in music and the arts, active internationally across festivals, artist management, and public relations. With over 18 years of experience in cultural production, she has worked on experimental music and interdisciplinary projects, specializing in marketing, sponsorship, and strategic partnerships. She is the co-founder of ZURI & MARIA Agency, focusing on artist management, festival curation, and project conception, and has been a partner at Stars & Heroes Communications since 2010, leading international media campaigns for musicians and labels. Her curatorial work spans institutions such as HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the Norient Music Film Festival, and projects like The Only Good System Is a Sound System. A jury member for cultural funding programs, she has contributed to shaping contemporary artistic initiatives across various regions. While much of her work has been based in Europe, she has been involved in numerous international projects, including in Greece.

Timo Torsten Schmidt | Co-Organizer of the Subjective Experience Track

Dr. Timo Torsten Schmidt is a neuroscientist at Freie Universität Berlin, specializing in experimental consciousness research. He researches neural mechanisms of human consciousness in mental imagery, working memory and altered states of consciousness. With a background in Cognitive Science, Medical Neuroscience, and Computational Neurosicence, he has conducted research at institutions such as the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, the University of Osnabrück and the Freie Universität Berlin. He is a co-founder of the Collaboration for Interdisciplinary Research on Conscious Experience (CIRCE), which advances the scientific study of consciousness and altered states by providing high-quality reference datasets and best-practice measurement methods. As advocate for open and citizen science, he is the founder of the Altered States Database, promoting reference data for the research community to promote interdisciplinary research in consciousness studies.

Cyril Costines | Co-Organizer of the Subjective Experience Track

Cyril Costines is a doctoral researcher at the Medical Center – University of Freiburg, Germany, and the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP) in Freiburg, Germany. His research focuses on the neurophenomenological study of consciousness as such, with particular emphasis on altered states induced by meditation, psychedelics, and sensory deprivation. As a member of the MPE research network, he works on the theoretical and empirical investigation of pure awareness in the context of "nondual floating." He is a co-founder of the Collaboration for Interdisciplinary Research on Conscious Experience (CIRCE), where he co-initiated the Altered X Project (AXP), dedicated to mapping the phenomenal state-space. He is also co-founder of the Contemplative Lab (ConLab), a citizen science initiative to facilitate dialogue between meditation researchers and meditators on a culture of consciousness.​

Stratos Bichakis | ​Production Assistant

Stratos Bichakis is a transdisciplinary artist. His work centers on experiential installations and performances that transform human senses through digital technologies. He develops artistic tools and instruments, to explore the emotional and transcendent possibilities of sound, light, motion and language. |    photo credit: Jamie Rosenberg

Vasilis Bichakis | ​Musician

Vassilis Bichakis is a musician and researcher based in Crete. He studied from an early age the Cretan instruments Lyra and Laouto with Astrinos Zacharioudakis and Yannis Xylouris, along with classical and Byzantine music. He is a graduate of the Department of Music Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and did his master’s in “Cultural Analysis and Education” from the Department of Philosophical and Social Studies of the University of Crete. His longstanding engagement with researching, teaching, and performing Cretan music includes productions for radio and publishing. He has been a member of the Traditional Music Association of Apokoronas “Harilaos” since 2014.​

Pawel Motyka | Co-Organizer of  Virtual Reality Track

Dr. Paweł Motyka is a researcher in psychology specializing in consciousness studies, altered states of consciousness, and multisensory integration. He is currently affiliated with the Institute of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. His research explores the interplay between interoception and exteroception, time perception, and the role of bodily processes in conscious awareness. He has collaborated with institutions such as the University of Sussex and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. His recent work focuses on altered states of consciousness and cybernetic hallucinations in virtual reality, advancing our understanding of perception and conscious experience.

Keisuke Suzuki | Co-Organizer of  Virtual Reality Track

Keisuke Suzuki is a cognitive scientist specializing in embodied cognition and conscious presence. He obtained his Ph.D. in artificial life from the University of Tokyo in 2007 and conducted research on human cognition in virtual reality at RIKEN Brain Science Institute (2008–2011). He later joined the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex (2011–2021), where he developed VR-based experiments on self-consciousness. Since 2021, he has been a specially appointed lecturer at Hokkaido University’s CHAIN center. His research combines virtual reality, experimental manipulation of bodily and mental states, and theoretical modeling to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the subjective sense of presence.

Till Holzapfel | Co-Organizer of  Virtual Reality Track

Till Holzapfel (aka Mesmer Prism) is a cognitive scientist and digital artist whose work explores the intersection of altered states of consciousness, embodiment, and immersive technologies. Having earned his Master's degree in Cognitive Science from the University of Osnabrück, he served as lab manager for the Intangible Realities Lab under Dr. David Glowacki, where he developed expertise in virtual reality applications. His artistic practice creates prismatic, particle-based immersive experiences that challenge conventional notions of avatar embodiment, while his research with the Viscereality Project investigates how bio-responsive VR applications can adapt to users' breathing patterns to induce altered states of consciousness. His work work showcases  the emerging field of consciousness studies in extended reality contexts.

Taru Emilia Hirvonen | Attendee

Taru Hirvonen is a computer science with a strong interest in consciousness research, known for her work developing mathematical models and visualizations to explore the dynamics of conscious experience

Raimonds Jermarks (Symmetric Vision) | Attendee

Raimonds Jermaks, known as Symmetric Vision, is a Latvian multidisciplinary artist whose work merges digital art, altered states research, and immersive visual storytelling. Since 2014, he has created nearly a thousand intricate visuals that evoke non-ordinary states of consciousness, drawing from meditation, dreams, sensory deprivation, and psychedelics (Psyworldwide). Using tools like After Effects, Blender, and audio software, he translates inner experiences into dynamic, multidimensional environments. Celebrated for his live projection mapping and VJ sets at festivals like MoDem and Shankra, his performances transform physical space into synesthetic landscapes. His concept of “psychedelic cryptography,” where hidden messages become visible only in altered states, earned recognition from the Qualia Research Institute and coverage in VICE. His work has also been acknowledged for visually modeling phenomena like entity encounters and multisensory fusion during psychedelics. Through his YouTube channel, mobile app, and educational content, Jermaks makes complex inner realities accessible, inviting audiences to reimagine the boundaries of perception.

France Lerner | Attendee

France Lerner holds a B.A. in Fine Art and Art History from Kingston University and a Ph.D. in Art and Science from the Royal Academy of Arts, conducted in collaboration with HELESI at UCLouvain and the COMA Science Group at the University of Liège, under the supervision of Prof. Steven Laureys and Prof. Mylène Botbol-Baum. Her dissertation, Near-Death Experiences States: Matters of Displacement (E-motion, Creation, Reparation), explored altered states of consciousness through embodiment and spatiality. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Weizmann Institute of Science in the Laboratory for Robotics and Virtual Reality under Prof. Tamar Flash and currently serves as Assistant Professor at the Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA), supported by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (BJNSF). Her current research uses graphic-verbal methodologies to segment near-death experiences (NDEs) into spatio-temporal sequences, revealing patterns of self-location and motion. Alongside her scientific work, she maintains an international artistic practice as a permanent artist at SEE Gallery, where she explores consciousness, time, and space.

Alfredo Parra | Attendee

Alfredo Parra conducts research and advocacy at the Qualia Research Institute, where he focuses on strategies to quantify and reduce extreme suffering (e.g., from cluster headaches and kidney stones). He has also authored a forthcoming paper on physical ontologies in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. Previously, Alfredo spent seven years in management and operations at two AI risk non-profits—the Center on Long-Term Risk and the Institute for Law & AI—working to mitigate existential threats. He holds a Master’s and PhD in computational science from the Technical University of Munich and a Bachelor’s in engineering physics from Tecnológico de Monterrey. His publications cover topics in numerical mathematics, mathematical optics, and high-performance computing.

Trevor Hewitt | Attendee

Trevor Hewitt is a PhD candidate in informatics under the prestigious Margaret Boden Scholarship. He is currently conducting research into visual hallucinations using AI and computational neurophenomenology methods under the superivison of Prof. Anil Seth and Dr. David Schwartzman at the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. ​

James Sanders | Attendee

James W. Sanders is a psychologist, cognitive neuroscientist, and phenomenologist at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London. Specializing in the micro-phenomenological method, his research explores acute and extended DMT experiences, 5-MeO-DMT, and advanced meditation states, and he also teaches micro-phenomenology and phenomenological interviewing to researchers and psychedelic integration specialists.

Kazuya Horibe | Attendee

Kazuya Horibe is currently a Special Postdoctoral Researcher at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS). He is studying computational biology and artificial life in the graduate school of Osaka University, after finishing his Bachelor’s degree in biological science at Osaka University and his Master’s degree in information science at Osaka University. He received his Ph.D. from Osaka University.

Hector Taylor | Attendee

Hector Taylor is a dual PhD candidate in Neuroscience and Psychology in the Psychedelic Research group at the Psychiatric University Hospital of Zurich, where he integrates virtual reality embodiment-simulation techniques with psychedelic compounds to develop novel treatments for chronic pain. He holds a B.S. in Cognitive Psychology from Arizona State University and has managed clinical neurology trials in Boston as well as served as Lab Manager at Brown University's Virtual Environment Navigation Lab. His research uses neurophenomenological modeling and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to link subjective states to cortical dynamics, and he is interested in collaborative projects combining cognitive neuroscience, immersive technology, and altered states.

Aline Frick | Attendee

Aline Frick completed her research master’s in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. She currently works as a Jungian art therapist and research assistant at a precision psychiatry start-up that develops digital tools to personalize mental health care. Her research focuses on altered states of consciousness and their potential to support psychological transformation and emotional regulation. Driven by a particular interest in women’s health within psychedelic therapy, Aline contributes to research at Hystelica, an organization committed to redefining the understanding and treatment of women’s mental health by exploring how hormonal sensitivity and menstrual cycle phases impact the efficacy and safety of psychedelics.

Antoine Bellemare | Attendee

Antoine Bellemare is a multidisciplinary artist and postdoctoral researcher at Bard College in New York. He earned a PhD in neuroscience and digital arts from Concordia University, where his research explored creativity through electrophysiological signals and algorithmic composition—particularly how sensory noise shapes creative perception and meaning emerges from ambiguous information. Antoine has developed interactive installations that blend biosignals from plants, brains, and hearts to craft new narrative experiences. His work brings together poetry, neuroscience, electroacoustic music, and artificial intelligence as converging modes of expression. You can explore his artistic projects at his personal website: antoinebellemare.com.

Tobias Buchborn | Attendee

Tobias Buchborn holds a diploma and PhD in Neurobiology from Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, where he studied behavioral and molecular mechanisms of psychedelic tolerance. He has worked at Imperial College London using optogenetic voltage imaging to investigate cortical dynamics during psychedelic states, and is currently at the Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim (ZI), applying chemogenetic and fiber photometry techniques to explore the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in addiction. Among his current projects, Buchborn’s recent study, "Ego Dissolution and Therapeutic Mechanisms in Psychedelic Therapy", examines how psychedelics induce ego dissolution and how altered self-boundaries may contribute to therapeutic outcomes by integrating neurobiological and psychological perspectives.

Vince Polito | Attendee

Vince Polito is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University, where he investigates how altered states of consciousness impact cognition and mental health. His research spans hypnosis, flow states, meditation, yoga, chanting, virtual reality, religious rituals, and psychosis. Vince is best known for leading Australia’s first longitudinal study of psychedelic microdosing and is developing a psychedelic research program at Macquarie that includes the world’s first MEG (magnetoencephalography) study of microdosing. He is also leading one of Australia’s largest psychedelic clinical trials, the MicroDep Trial, which explores the use of low doses of psilocybin as a potential treatment for depression.

Noah Clark | Attendee

Noah Clark is an independent researcher and software engineer with over 12 years of experience in architecting and developing software, with a particular passion for graph-based modeling. Motivated by a deep interest in meditation and phenomenology, he founded iAm, a software platform for computational phenomenology that enables real-time measurement and idiographic temporal network modeling of subjective experience. His work centers on developing methods to capture the dynamic, temporal, and interconnected nature of consciousness as it unfolds. Committed to formalizing the measurement and classification of subjective perception, Noah promotes an open-science, collaborative approach to building systematic models of experience. He is eager to engage with fellow researchers to push the boundaries of computational phenomenology through innovative tools and methodologies for studying the mind.

Kezia Chuaqui | Attendee

Kezia Chuaqui (she/they) holds a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley and an MA in Philosophy from Princeton University. They recently completed a post‑baccalaureate program at Columbia University, focusing their thesis on changes in alpha power during altered states of consciousness. Their research examines the relationship between individual trait variation—such as mental imagery and absorption—and hallucination across both clinical and non‑clinical contexts, with secondary interests in measuring subjective experience and clarifying neuroscientific terminology. As a member of the autism community, Kezia advocates for greater awareness of cognitive diversity and explores how to better accommodate the diverse ways people perceive and interact with the world.

Natalia Santander | Attendee

Natalia is a multidisciplinary practitioner with roots in Latin America and a current base in Lisbon. Her path has moved between corporate roles in the tech world, long-term spiritual practices, and creative exploration. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master’s in Curatorial Studies from IUNA Buenos Aires, and is currently exploring the intersection of somatic awareness, energy perception, and immersive design. Her work is guided by a deep interest in how subtle experience, aesthetics, and inner practice can inform new forms of healing and human connection.

Philipp Thölke | Attendee

My research focuses on the intersection of computational neuroscience, real-time neurotechnology, and consciousness studies, with an emphasis on developing computational tools to investigate mental states from a multi-modal perspective. A central project is goofi-pipe, an open-source framework for real-time EEG and biosignal processing that enables intuitive prototyping of low-latency biofeedback systems in embodied, interactive contexts. I apply complexity and criticality frameworks to EEG data to explore brain dynamics across cognitive states, using machine learning to uncover latent patterns and structure in neural activity. This work contributes to the development of AI foundation models that embed neurophysiological data into structured latent spaces for brain decoding and connects to the broader field of computational phenomenology, aiming to relate data-driven insights to the structure of conscious experience. Parallel efforts explore the convergence of neurotechnology and digital art through generative, signal-responsive installations, creating interfaces that engage both analytical and experiential dimensions of mind.

Yann Harel | Attendee

Yann Harel is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Montreal whose work lies at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and media technologies, aiming to understand how biological and artificial systems learn, perform and interact. In particular, he leverages neuroimaging, electrophysiology and machine learning in naturalistic videogame paradigms to investigate the neural computations underlying intelligence and consciousness. His interdisciplinary work bridges neuroscience, gaming, and digital arts, examining how digital media shape brain dynamics and influence cognitive processes relevant to mental health. He is committed to open science and knowledge sharing, blending rigorous methodology with creative applications that reimagine how humans and machines learn and play together.

Vismay Agrawal | Attendee

Vismay Agrawal is pursuing a PhD at the Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies (M3CS), Australia, under the supervision of Prof. Jakob Hohwy, Director of M3CS (research.monash.edu) and Dr. Ruben Laukkonen, Senior Lecturer in cognitive science and computational neuroscience (rubenlaukkonen.com). His primary interests include understanding mental suffering, advanced meditative insights, and phenomenology. His research investigates how meditation reduces suffering by integrating insights from contemplative traditions, psychology, and active inference . Outside academia, Vismay works as a meditation and psychedelic-integration coach, facilitating retreats and guiding individuals on mindfulness journeys. His personal meditation practice follows the MIDL Meditation method developed by Stephen Procter and grounded in traditional Buddhist insight practices.

Michael Lifshitz | Attendee

Michael Lifshitz is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal. He completed his PhD in neuroscience at McGill and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in anthropology at Stanford University, where he worked with Tanya Luhrmann to explore how culture shapes spiritual experience. He now co-directs the Psychedelics and Contemplation Lab at McGill, an interdisciplinary research group combining phenomenology, neuroscience, and ethnography to investigate the plasticity of consciousness. His work focuses on practices that aim to transform subjective experience—such as meditation, hypnosis, placebos, prayer, and psychedelics—with a particular interest in how these practices modulate the sense of agency, making thoughts, actions, and sensations feel as if they emerge from a source beyond the self.

Yutaka Makino | Attendee

Yutaka Makino, born in 1976 in Tochigi, Japan, is an artist and researcher based in Berlin, Germany, and Fukuoka, Japan. Drawing on fields such as psychiatry, psychoacoustics, neuroscience, linguistics, and the history of science, his performances and installations explore perceptual processes through experimental setups. By creating acoustically and visually conditioned environments, his work makes perception itself tangible, inviting reflection on the act of perceiving and on behavioral responses to stimuli. Makino’s work has been presented at institutions and festivals including Akademie der Künste, daadgalerie, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Japan Society New York, Donaueschinger Musiktage, MaerzMusik, CTM Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Sónar, and Sonic Acts. He has received awards and fellowships from institutions such as Prix Ton Bruynèl, the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, Villa Aurora Los Angeles, MacDowell, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, and the Pola Art Foundation. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Design, Kyushu University.

Romy Beauté | Attendee

Romy Beauté is a PhD candidate at the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science within the School of Engineering and Informatics at the University of Sussex, investigating altered states of consciousness at the intersection of phenomenology and computational methods under the supervision of Prof. Anil Seth (who co-directs the Centre) (sussex.ac.uk), Dr. Adam Barrett (users.sussex.ac.uk), and Dr. David Schwartzman (profiles.sussex.ac.uk). She’s affiliated with the be.AI – biomimetic embodied AI programme within the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics (sussex.ac.uk), and is an enrichment student at the Alan Turing Institute. Romy holds an MSc in Cognitive Sciences (Cogmaster) from the École Normale Supérieure, Paris and an MSc in Applied Mathematics and Machine Learning (MVA) from the École Normale Supérieure Paris‑Saclay, where she applied machine learning to detect residual cognition in unresponsive patients and performed multivariate analysis of neural correlates of self-awareness in hypnosis. Her PhD combines natural language processing—developing the MOSAIC framework for clustering phenomenological reports—with neural complexity measures to map relationships between subjective experience and brain dynamics. Beyond her formal program, she is keenly interested in how lived experience and cultural background shape beliefs and ontological perspectives.

Jonas Mago | Co-Organizer of Lived Experience Track

Jonas Mago is a cognitive neuroscientist exploring the neurobiological and cognitive mechanisms of human flourishing through contemplative practices, neurobiology, computational modeling, and phenomenology. He is pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University under Dr. Michael Lifshitz and Prof. Dr. Karl Friston, building on a background in Mind, Language, and Embodied Cognition from the University of Edinburgh. Beyond academia, he has worked in neurotech and AI-driven projects and is a certified Unified Mindfulness Meditation Coach. His personal contemplative practice informs his research and teaching, bridging scientific inquiry with lived experience to support mental wellbeing and self-transformation.

Mar Estaralles | Co-Organizer of Lived Experience Track​​

Mar Estarellas is a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University, where she studies the interaction between brain, body, and natural rhythms through a transdisciplinary and neurophenomenological lens. In her previous postdoc at the University of Cambridge, she explored brain information profiles across wake–sleep states, with applications to neurodegenerative diseases. Her current research bridges neuroscience, phenomenology, and ecology to understand how perception and synchronization with the environment shape conscious experience. She is particularly interested in how practices like meditation, psychedelics and immersion in nature modulate brain activity and foster a sense of connection to the world. She is committed to re-enchanting scientific research through storytelling, traditional ecological knowledge, and embodied engagement with the natural world.

Andres Gomez Emilson | ​Co-Organizer of the Qualia Research Track

Andrés Gómez Emilsson is a researcher in consciousness studies and the Director of Research at the Qualia Research Institute (QRI). With a background in Symbolic Systems and Computational Psychology from Stanford University, his work integrates neuroscience, philosophy, and artificial intelligence to explore the computational properties of consciousness. His research focuses on qualia mapping, the pleasure-pain axis, and psychedelic-induced alterations in consciousness, alongside developing neurotechnologies to study and influence subjective experience. He is known for contributions such as the Symmetry Theory of Valence and topological models of consciousness, advancing both theoretical and applied approaches to understanding subjective experience.

Qualia Research Institute | ​Co-Organizational Partner

The Qualia Research Institute (QRI) is a nonprofit organization based in Silicon Valley, dedicated to developing a mathematical framework for consciousness and understanding emotional valence—why experiences feel good or bad. Founded in 2018 by Andrés Gómez Emilsson, Mike Johnson, and Romeo Stevens, QRI employs a qualia formalist approach, treating subjective experiences as mathematical objects. Its key projects include the Symmetry Theory of Valence (STV), which links pleasure to mathematical symmetry, the Tracer Replication Tool for quantifying altered states, and collaborations with institutions like King’s College London and Imperial College London to study psychedelics and meditation. With a mission to enhance human well-being through neurotechnology and rigorous phenomenology, QRI bridges neuroscience, computational modeling, and philosophy to explore the structure of experience. ​As a funding partner, QRI is co-funding our workshop, supporting research on altered states of consciousness.

ALIUS Research Group | ​Co-Organizational Partner

The ALIUS Research Group is an international, interdisciplinary collective dedicated to the scientific study of consciousness and altered states of consciousness (ASCs). Founded in 2014, it brings together neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, anthropologists, and computer scientists to explore the diversity of conscious experiences. ALIUS promotes a naturalistic and interdisciplinary approach, integrating ASCs into mainstream research while addressing methodological and theoretical challenges. Its activities include theoretical and experimental studies, the ALIUS Bulletin, and international workshops fostering collaboration among researchers. The group actively supports scientific dialogue and research dissemination, advancing a systematic understanding of ASCs.