About

The Synthesis Institute is a global leader in the modern psychedelic movement, offering ethical and professional psychedelic education and training to aspiring psychedelic practitioners who seek personal growth, community, and professional development in the emerging psychedelic field.

About

The Synthesis Institute

As a global leader in the modern psychedelic movement, the Synthesis Institute is dedicated to advancing psychedelic research and delivering high-quality professional education and training for psychedelic practitioners. With a pioneering history of offering legal psychedelic experiences to over 1,000 individuals, the Synthesis Institute has established itself as a trusted educational provider for a growing community of more than 400 students and graduates. The Synthesis Institute continues to fulfill its mission through the Psychedelic Practitioner Training.

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Team

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Cameron Wenaus Chief Executive Officer

Cameron Wenaus is the co-founder and CEO of Retreat Guru, a website that helps people find and book retreats around the world. He is now as well the current CEO of Synthesis.

Cameron started their career in 1999 as the owner of Blue Mandala Communications, a communications company. In 2014, they co-founded Jam Factory Co-working, a shared office space in Vancouver.

Cameron Wenaus has an MBA in marketing and data mining from Dalhousie University. Cameron also has a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from The University of British Columbia.

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Costanza Di Prisco Director of Retreats & Immersions

Costanza began working with psychedelics more than 12 years ago, training with shamans and healers around the world. She is a Breathwork Coach and has studied to become a Psychedelic Practitioner, Somatic therapist and Bioneuroemotion therapist, a field that blends biology, neuroscience, epigenetics, NLP, and psychology. 

Her facilitation style combines ancient wisdom methods with cognitive therapeutic techniques from the West to produce powerful transformational experiences. She follows the tradition of the Shipibo from Peru in terms of shamanic techniques. Her goal is to serve as a bridge for people seeking to dive deep in their own journeys of self-discovery.

Costanza has been collaborating with Synthesis since 2021 as a Co-Lead Facilitator for the Retreats held in The Netherlands and as Guest Faculty for the Psychedelic Practitioner Training, more recently turning her focus to the development and delivery of the new Synthesis Immersion Experience.

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Maya Albert Director of Operations
Maya is an operations specialist and writer, dedicating her professional energy to the growth of the psychedelic ecosystem. As a Director of Operations, Maya supports each department in achieving their specific goals through goal setting, organizational structure, and project oversight. She also leads the Practicum program, connecting sites and students for in-person learning around the world.
 
Having co-founded the annual psychedelic conference, Psyched, and hosted the first Psychedelic House of Davos, Maya continues her pursuit to strengthen the community through the open-source sharing of knowledge and interdisciplinary networking. She has consulted and worked with a number of other organizations in the space, including the Heroic Hearts Project and Tabula Rasa Ventures. She has authored a compressive analytical report on the business of psychedelics and is now co-authoring the book, Our Trip Together. 
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Myriam Jenni Client Journey Manager
Myriam has worked as a management consultant for the last 5+ years. She worked on a wide variety of projects, ranging from IT implementation customer journey to eLearning development.

Since discovering the medicine work four years ago while traveling in Ecuador, she became increasingly fascinated by the healing potential of psychedelics. Her thirst for learning more led her to enroll in a Master's degree in Transpersonal Psychology, which she is currently completing. On top of that, she also co-founded the Psychedelic Society of Barcelona, where they organize talks and events related to the psychedelic world. Myriam loves spending time in nature in her free time, especially in the mountains, where she likes to go on long hikes. CLOSE
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Michaela Mairinger Director of Marketing

Michaela has dedicated the majority of her professional journey to fostering growth in startups. Prior to her association with the Synthesis Institute, she led the marketing initiatives at a digital mental health startup. Her educational credentials include a degree in Business and Marketing, as well as a Master's Degree in Marketing.

A personal experience with traumatic grief sparked a decade-long exploration into a variety of traditional and non-traditional healing methodologies. Michaela is particularly intrigued by the intersection of psychology and the symbolic language of archetypes. She has received training as a Gestalt Therapist, Drama and Art Therapist, Family Constellations Facilitator, SAT-certified Enneagram Practitioner, and Jungian Astrologer.

Michaela's first encounter with Ayahuasca in 2014 marked a significant turning point in her life, inspiring her to continue her exploration of various plant medicines ever since.

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ANDREW LANTERMAN Admissions Guide

Andrew received his Bachelor of Science in Environmental Management and Protection from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. His academic training provided a foundation for understanding the relationship between human and ecological systems, although it was a consciousness expanding moment in 2013 that provoked a fully visceral and cathartic realization of the unsustainable systems of modernity. This existential awakening led him to seek alternative paths of living and being, and pinpointed the importance of a deep need for individual and collective transformation within consciousness.

His path naturally oriented towards practices within the yogic traditions, which ultimately led him to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA where he devoted five years working and studying. Andrew ultimately found a love for psychedelic guiding and integration coaching, and he continues to find an ever-deepening well of compassion and awe for the complexities within our shared human experience.

His current inquiries include how to reorient our individual and collective values towards timeless wisdom, and how to personally and collectively remember the sacredness that is life.

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Mina Samuals Program Manager & Learning Facilitator

Mina Samuels is a writer, speaker, playwright, and performer, and in a previous incarnation, a litigation lawyer and human rights advocate; as well as an athlete and meditation practitioner, trained in Non-Violent Communication and Internal Family Systems. Mina offers workshops and one-on-one facilitations on the transformative power of the body-mind connection and how it nourishes our whole self. Her books include, Run Like A Girl 365 Days: A Practical, Personal, Inspirational Guide for Women Athletes and Run Like a Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives and she writes regularly for Medium and Fit Is A Feminist Issue.  She has also created and performed two award-winning solo shows and an ensemble play.

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Juan Tepui Retreat & Music Facilitator
Juan has studied music since childhood and music production at University. He became interested in psychedelics and their strong influence on music and consciousness from an early age. He has spent years in India practicing meditation and yoga in various ashrams. He studied the Bansuri flute with the legendary Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, and now teaches and makes Bansuri himself.

He has been dedicated to facilitating live music for meditation, healing, and psychedelic ceremonies for many years, for the Ayahuasca tradition of Colombian Shamans and increasingly for psilocybin journeys. Juan is passionate about the transformative power of psychedelics, what they can bring to humanity, and how they can help us heal our connection to nature and spiritual growth. CLOSE
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Mary Bredin Retreat Facilitator & Learning Facilitator
Mary is a psychotherapist with over 30 years experience of working in a variety of UK healthcare settings as a clinical supervisor, group facilitator, researcher, and educator. She specializes in helping people face loss and change, illness, and death, and is particularly interested in how nature connection, mindfulness, self-compassion, and vision quest rites of passage can support journeys of personal growth, transformation, and healing. In her spare time, she tends an old Cornish garden, which has lots of flowers and brambles. She swims in the sea all year round and loves to walk in wild places. CLOSE