About Us

The Nikean Foundation is one of the world’s leading charities funding clinical research and educational programming focused on the advancement of psychedelic medicine for mental health. To date, we have used our resources to support psychedelic science and clinical deployment by creating Canada’s first Psychedelic Psychotherapy Research Centre and by committing significant contributions to aid in the success of the most prominent international organizations advancing psychedelic access.

Today, we turn our attention to storytelling, by building an education platform designed to create new meaning for those exploring psychedelic experiences. We recognize the need to transition from proving efficacy to providing education. It's time to merge the research with personal experiences and impart guidance so that we can collectively create a new narrative of what it means to transform.

We are all powerful storytellers with unique tales to tell. We must step out and share them widely because when we transform out loud, we prevent others from suffering in silence.

Values

At Nikean we operate from a culturally responsive, socially just lens. We approach this work with humility and the understanding that there is no 'one size fits all' experience. While preferences may vary, we believe the standards for safety and efficacy remain the same.

As an organization, we commit to ongoing personal and professional development regarding ethics and integrity in this space. We are in constant reflection of our own intentions, identities, backgrounds, lived experiences, and their intersections.

We commit to on-going self-inquiry to ensure that motivations are community serving and acted out for the greater good. If an issue is outside of our scope of competency, we seek external guidance from community members, colleagues and mentors who hold expertise on the matter.

We adhere to industry and community ethics and standards that are shared and respected in this space. We commit to working with Open Science partners who share those values and their knowledge for the greater good.

Meet Our Team

Sanjay Singhal

Founder & Executive Director

Tech entrepreneur and author, Sanjay is best known for founding and selling Audiobooks.com. He is president of the Aquanta Group, the managing partner for 500 Startups Canada, an angel investor, and an active philanthropist. Recently, Sanjay has been working on perfecting the service industry with the opening of his first lounge in Toronto, ON — Coffee Oysters Champagne — developing new technologies that help elevate the customer experience. In early 2019, Sanjay established the Nikean Foundation with hopes of promoting psychedelic science and bringing to the forefront novel medicines for mental health disorders.

Linda Medeiros

Chief Operating Officer & Board Member

After graduating from the University of Toronto, her travels found her in South America where she first discovered the therapeutic potential of plant medicines and gained a deep interest in how these consciousness-expanding tools unlocked paths for self healing and personal exploration. She attributes her holistic well being and control over her mental health to the integration of psychedelics and mindfulness practices, and has been an advocate for the medicines for well over a decade. Today, with a background in communications and operations management, she is honoured to be working with impactful organizations as a collective to propel psychedelic science into the forefront for mental health care. While working at becoming a psychotherapist, she is committed to empowering others to heal themselves and take their mental health back into their own hands.

Tura Patterson

Board Member

As Usona’s Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, Tura’s background includes 30 years of experience in international economic and commercial relations, including business development and strategic planning in life sciences and high tech industries. Her interests have always focused on applying sustainable business practices to create innovative solutions and positive impact through collaboration and partnerships in a way that cannot be accomplished by traditional models of development. Tura has been passionate about the potential of psychedelic research as a means for healing mental illness in our society today and views organizations like the Nikean Foundation and Usona Institute as the catalyst for a new paradigm in drug development and delivery of care.

Alex Enchin

Board Member

Alex is an extroverted, passionate, and spiritual entrepreneur from Toronto. A graduate of Western University, he’s founded two tech startups and splits his time between Los Angeles and Canada. Alex’s quest to find new treatment options for his mom and his own personal development converged into the psychedelic space in 2018. His first psychedelic therapy experience changed the trajectory of his career and life. Through his experiences in the space, Alex is convinced that psychedelics represent the most promising development in mental healthcare. His passion lies in advancing the science of and access to psychedelic medicine, to heal the sick and better the well. A passionate yogi and meditator, Alex loves tennis, hiking, food, wine, psychedelic networking, and starting things from a blank canvas.

Kristine Harding

Foundation Assistant

Kristine is the executive assistant to founder Sanjay Singhal, and is grateful to be able to blend her administrative role with her keen interest in psychedelic science and access. With a background in theatre and live event production, she is excited to contribute her efforts and unique skills into rebuilding the framework for mental health.

Cory Firth

Chief Storyteller

Cory is a human-impact community builder, communications entrepreneur and plant medicine advocate who has spent the last 5 years building communities in the mental health and wellness space. After a 20 year battle with depression, Cory has committed his career to a vision of the future where the stigmatization of mental illness is replaced with compassion, transformation and community connection; a world where we work together to reunite with our innate abilities to heal, overcome and actualize our full potential. As the former Executive Director of the Canadian Psychedelic Association, Cory is passionate about collaborating with other psychedelic advocates to share their transformation stories with the world.