Dennis McKenna Ph.D.
Enthnopharmacologist
Visionary Thinker
For the last twenty-five years, Dennis McKenna has pursued the interdisciplinary study of ethnopharmacology and plant hallucinogens. He is co-author, with his brother Terence, of The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (Seabury Press, 1975; Citadel Press, 1991), a philosophical and metaphysical exploration of the ontological implications of psychedelic drugs which resulted from the two brothers' early investigations of Amazonian hallucinogens in 1971.
He received his doctorate in 1984 from the University of British Columbia. His doctoral research focused on ethnopharmacological investigations of the botany, chemistry, and pharmacology of ayahuasca and oo-koo-he, two orally-active tryptamine-based hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. Following the completion of his doctorate, Dr. McKenna received post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health, and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine.
In 1990, he joined Shaman Pharmaceuticals as Director of Ethnopharmacology. He relocated to Minnesota in 1993 to join the Aveda Corporation, a manufacturer of natural cosmetic products, as Senior Research Pharmacognosist.
After working for several years as an independent scientific consultant in the natural products industry, he joined the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota in 2001 as a Senior Lecturer and Research Associate.
In 2007, Dr. McKenna accepted a position as Senior Research Scientist in the Natural Health Products Research Group at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Burnaby, B.C. Dr. Mckenna serves on the Advisory Board of the American Botanical Council, and on the Editorial Board of Phytomedicine, International Journal of Phytotherapy and Phytopharmacology.
He is a co-author and editor with two colleagues of Botanical Medicines: the Desk Reference for Major Herbal Supplements (Haworth Herbal Press, 2002). He is a founding board member and Vice-President of the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit scientific organization dedicated to the investigation of therapeutic applications for psychedelic plants and compounds.
Dr. McKenna was a primary organizer and key scientific collaborator for the Hoasca Project, an international biomedical study of Hoasca, a psychoactive drink used in ritual contexts by indigenous peoples and syncretic religious groups in Brasil.
Dr. McKenna has conducted extensive ethnobotanical fieldwork in the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brasilian Amazon. He has served as invited speaker at numerous scientific congresses, seminars, and symposia.
Dr. McKenna is author or co-author of over 40 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, European Journal of Pharmacology, Brain Research, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurochemistry, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Economic Botany, and elsewhere.
Read Article: Ayahuasca: An Ethnopharmacologic History.
By Dennis McKenna
