Tehseen Noorani (NZ / UK)

Tehseen Noorani is a psychedelic social scientist based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Alongside Māori taonga pūoro practitioner Jor’el McQueen, Tehseen is the non-Indigenous lead of the project, Community Strategising about Psychedelic Therapy in Aotearoa. Born in the UK with Indian ancestry, he moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in early 2023. He collaborates with psychedelic researchers conducting trials at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland. Tehseen also convenes the international, multi-disciplinary, Reimagining Psychedelic Trials working group. He supports the development of a certification test for psychedelic therapists in the United States as a member of the US Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies. Tehseen is also co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Psychedelics.

Tehseen got involved in psychedelics research as a qualitative researcher at the Johns Hopkins research lab in 2013. Since then he has been comparing the phenomenological, epistemic, and therapeutic nature of experiences produced through the use of psychedelics, with those arising unprompted and often pathologised as 'psychotic'. His research tries to offer insights into how these sets of extreme experiences are understood, including through first-person inquiry, traditional knowledges, and experimentation. He has an interdisciplinary training, which informs his interest in the epistemological, ethical, and methodological challenges that arise in attempts to conduct meaningful cross-disciplinary and participatory research.

Connect: www.psychedelictherapynz.org