Dr. Murray is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. He received his PhD in neuroscience in 2019 under the mentorship of Marina Wolf. His doctoral thesis examined adaptations in neural plasticity supporting drug seeking behaviors in preclinical models of cocaine addiction. Dr. Murray transitioned from preclinical to human behavioral pharmacology in 2019 as a postdoctoral fellow in the National Institute on Drug Abuse T32 Training Program at the University of Chicago under the mentorship of Harriet de Wit. At the University of Chicago, Dr. Murray applied neuroimaging techniques, including electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess acute effects of psychoactive compounds on the brain. This work examined the clinical potential of drugs that act on the serotonin (5-HT) 2A receptor, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and methyl​enedioxy​methamphetamine (MDMA). Currently, Dr. Murray works under the mentorship of Ziva Cooper on a project examining markers of brain health (EEG) in relation to cannabis use disorder. Dr. Murray has also co-authored standard operating procedures for psilocybin therapy in the Semel Institute’s Psychedelic Studies Initiative. Support from The Friends of Semel Calabrese Family Scholar Fund Award will be used for an IRB- approved pilot study to establish the safe administration of psilocybin in individuals with cocaine use disorder. 10 individuals with cocaine use disorder will receive 25 mg oral psilocybin in an open-label design. Participants will prepare for psilocybin sessions with two monitors trained in psilocybin-assisted therapy. On psilocybin session days, the monitors will sit with the participant in a comfortable living- room-like environment and encourage inward reflection. Following the therapy session, integration sessions will occur at 2, 10, 50, and 90 days from the visit. These follow-ups will ask about recent cocaine use and craving to collect preliminary data on efficacy for future extramural funding applications. Future applications will investigate the impact of psilocybin therapy on biomarkers of cocaine addiction, ultimately using pharmaco-neuroimaging as a tool to better understand the mind and brain in health and disease.