About Us
PhilaDelic
Mission Statement
Our mission is to create an inspiring and inclusive space for psychedelic education, scholarship, and community. This conference cultivates a setting of diverse experts to facilitate meaningful discussion, foster ideas, and expanding understanding. Together, we will consciously and creatively advance the field of psychedelics for the greater good of society. Our varied conference programming includes panels, lectures, mixers, workshops, and opportunities to engage with the broader psychedelic community.
Our history
The first PhilaDelic Conference on the Transdisciplinary Frontiers of Psychedelic Studies was organized by the Penn Psychedelics Collaborative (PPC) and held at the University of Pennsylvania in July 2023.
Since then, we’ve had one other conference—PhilaDelic 2024—and have our first one-day Fall Forum happening in 2025.
However, Penn has been building towards the establishment of an interdisciplinary working group of faculty, researchers, clinicians, and students dedicated to pushing beyond the frontiers of psychedelic studies for more than a decade.
Founded in 2023, the Penn Psychedelics Collaborative wasn't the first group with an interest in psychedelic science. Read below to learn more about the interest in psychedelic science that’s been building at Penn over the last 13 years.
In 2012, the University of Pennsylvania was home to the first Psychedemia conference, which included hundreds of attendees and dozens of speakers across multiple fields of study. This was the first psychedelic conference on a university campus in decades.
In 2015, Students for Sensible Drug Policy at the University of Pennsylvania hosted an evening of conversations in collaboration with Symposia, bringing together Dennis McKenna, Dimitri Mulganis, and Neşe Devenot for a conversation about psychedelics from biological, traditional, and ethical lenses.
In 2019, the Penn Society for Psychedelic Studies hosted the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Summit with hundreds of attendees and a dozen speakers. This conference was the proto-launch of the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Network (IPN), a non-profit organization dedicated to student professional development in the psychedelic ecosystem.
In 2022, Penn’s School of Nursing organized a multi-part Learning Seminar Series that attracted hundreds of participants virtually and culminated in an in-person symposium. This later continued with funding in combination with Columbia to create training for students in the nursing and social work schools at both universities.
In 2023, the Mahoney Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania hosted its Year of Psychedelics seminar series and symposium.
In 2025, the Paidiea-funded course Psychedelic Paradigms and Practices launched at Penn with great success, taught by Professor Jackie Tileston (Design) and Professor Michael Baime (Medicine).
Penn Psychedelics Collaborative
Mission Statement
We believe collaboration across fields is essential to generate novel transdisciplinary research, and a centralized working group at Penn is the most effective way to facilitate the connections necessary to meet the evolving needs of psychedelic scholarship.
The Penn Psychedelic Collaborative brings individuals together—faculty, students, and professionals from Penn, local universities, and from the Philadelphia region—with unique approaches to psychedelic research, forging new connections between centers and across departments in the Schools of Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, Social Policy and Practice, Law, Business, Arts and Sciences, and Design to catalyze innovative transdisciplinary research.
Visit our website to learn more.