Zach Walsh, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia; Psychedelic Research Program Director
The most prominent psychedelic researcher in Canada — leading UBC's psilocybin research program and among the most published researchers on cannabis therapeutics and psychedelic policy.
Biography
Zach Walsh is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus and the director of the UBC Psychedelic Studies Research Program — the most active psychedelic research program in Canada. His research bridges psychedelic science, cannabis therapeutics, and drug policy, making him unusually positioned to understand the regulatory and scientific trajectories of novel therapeutic substances.
Walsh's psychedelic research spans clinical trials, survey-based epidemiology, and policy analysis. He has conducted and published research on psilocybin for depression, naturalistic psychedelic use outcomes, and the relationship between psychedelic use and measures of psychological flexibility and wellbeing. His program has trained numerous graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who have spread throughout the Canadian and international psychedelic research community.
His cannabis research — one of the most substantial bodies of evidence on therapeutic cannabis use in the research literature — has established Walsh as a credible voice on the therapeutic and policy dimensions of psychoactive substance regulation. This cross-compound expertise gives him a regulatory vantage point that researchers focused exclusively on psilocybin may lack: he has watched cannabis move through legalization in Canada and has applied those lessons to understanding what psilocybin's regulatory future might look like.
Walsh has been a persistent advocate for evidence-based drug policy in Canada and internationally, contributing to reports and policy consultations on psychedelic and cannabis regulation. Canada's regulatory environment for psychedelic research has been more permissive than the US in certain respects, giving Walsh's program access to research designs that have been more difficult to implement south of the border.
Organizations
Why They Matter to the LearnShrooms Community
Walsh leads the most productive psychedelic research program in Canada and brings rare dual expertise in psychedelics and cannabis therapeutics — giving him a regulatory and scientific perspective on novel therapeutic substance development that is distinct from researchers focused on a single compound. Canada's evolving regulatory environment for psychedelics makes his work increasingly important for the North American field.
Legal Context
For the legal landscape where Zach Walsh, Ph.D. operates, see psilocybin laws in International.