Meet Jessica Nielson

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Nielson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.

Jessica, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I think I’ve always been driven to do things to the best of my ability. Sometimes for the sake of just validating my own sense of self worth and accomplishment, other times because it was a worthy cause that I felt called to be of service to, and other times due to trying to “win” or be the best at something. I got involved in gymnastics at a very young age, which was a grueling after school schedule of physical training and practice and competing with a team on weekends. I was also put to work a lot earlier than most of my friends. Summers were spent working in my father’s factory in Seattle, doing line work to help sort and package products that came through his warehouse. In high school I started waiting tables at a restaurant where I sometimes had to be hostess, waitress, busboy, and sometimes also the bartender due to understaffing. Collectively all this taught me to be a multitasker under intense pressure, teaching me adaptability and how to get the most out of not enough resources, and thus needing to develop a knack for efficiency of the process to achieve the highest quality possible. This was further refined during graduate school where I underwent grueling training to get a PhD in neurobiology under the mentorship of a pioneer in the field who taught me diligence, rigor, humility, dedication, and integrity. I’ve also had extensive experience with high doses of different psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca), which is a whole other level of mental and spiritual fitness training, from my perspective, challenging me to consistently face my deepest fears and insecurities and bring me back to the center of my purpose and values and how I want to apply those to the outer world and the work that I do.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

My work has evolved over the years, from pursuing an academic career in neuroscience/neurotrauma, mental health, and psychedelic therapies; to grassroots community work in the drug policy space; to more recent efforts to help influence policy through writing legislative reports for state sponsored task forces. I initially followed the path of getting a PhD in the biomedical sciences, pursuing postdoctoral training, and landing one of the few highly coveted tenure-track positions at a major research university and medical school. I used my combined skills to run federally funded research into mental health disorders (R01 grant from NIMH), as well as launching a first of its kind clinical trial with psilocybin that involved navigating a complex regulatory landscape with the FDA (authorizing the trial in humans), DEA (authorizing the use of a schedule 1 drug), and university and hospital IRBs (ethics committee), both of which were Herculean efforts to get up and running (https://nielsonlab.umn.edu/). Sparing some details about personal tragedies and complications, I experienced severe burnout after achieving all these milestones, and decided to leave the academic sector in May 2024 to focus on my health, grassroots community work, and drug policy advocacy.

At the present moment, I run a local nonprofit organization, the Psychedelic Society of Minnesota (https://psychedelicmn.com/about), dedicated to public education, harm reduction, research, drug policy reform, and community building around psychedelics. I have also been volunteering my time chairing a state task force about psychedelic medicines for the past year (https://www.health.state.mn.us/people/psychmed/index.html), which among other things, involved co-authoring a massive legislative report as a resource for any new bills that may get introduced related to creating access programs for psychedelic medicines. This report will be publicly available in early January 2025, and will be accessible in the Minnesota legislative reference library (https://www.lrl.mn.gov/). That has led to additional paid work to write another legislative report for a state task force on holistic approaches to illicit drug use for the state of Minnesota (https://mn.gov/mmb/oar/task-force/), which will be available to the public after March 2025. Other work I am excited about is my involvement as a board member with other grassroots community organizations, including Big Psych (https://bigpsychmpls.com/who-are-we/) and Southside Harm Reduction (https://southsideharmreduction.org/).

I am also getting more interested in the law, and considering going to law school. I had the opportunity during my time chairing the Minnesota Psychedelic Medicine Task Force to be included in the first cohort of the Harvard Psychedelic Bootcamp (https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/resources/opportunity/psychedelics-bootcamp-2024), which involved getting a certificate in Zero-L (https://online.law.harvard.edu/). Based on doing deep dives into drug laws that were needed to do the work and report writing for these state task forces, I have developed a renewed sense of purpose for diving into the legal arena to continue to pursue efforts to change drug laws and policies.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. The scientific method. This has been a staple for how I process and evaluate information. I try not to be too rigid about it when it comes to areas that are difficult to empirically prove (e.g. spirituality), yet I find it keeps me grounded in objective reality and keeping all of my biases in check when drawing conclusions from the deluge of information we are all swimming in constantly.

2. Experiential knowledge of psychedelics. This has been a driving source of connection to the spirit realm and my own complex inner world. I started doing psychedelics when I was 15, and over the years have developed my spiritual practice with them, which have helped me not only understand myself and my values, but also how the brain and mind works, and has been a valuable source of inspiration and knowledge about working with psychedelics in various contexts (scientific research, spiritual practice, drug policy and regulations, etc).

3. Perseverance. Perhaps it was something I was born with or it was engrained into me from an early age, but I became accustomed to having to fall/fail and get back up again and again and have continually had to rebuild myself from scratch, whether it be personally or professionally. I have a vision of where I want to go, and I do my best to keep my focus on that path. Sometimes I stray and get distracted or find myself out of step with that path, but I have learned that failure and practice keep me moving forward, even when the path feels dark and hopeless and perhaps not going where I think it should. Regardless of how hard things seem to feel, I have valued the adage “if you find yourself walking through hell, keep going.”

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

My main obstacle is allowing myself time and space (and grace) to heal from past and newly inflicted wounds. I tend to dive into work and purpose as a way to avoid feeling my feelings. I spend a lot of time trying to intellectualize things, and my own pain and traumas are not immune to that. It’s really hard for me to “rest” and often feeling like I need to earn it first. This has led to pretty severe burnout as it can creep up and become so overwhelming that the body will literally take over and force me to rest, disrupting the progress I think I am making. But overall and sustainable progress also involves taking care of ourselves and listening to ourselves when we need to step back and replenish our resources. I don’t have always have the time, space, or privilege to do that, and will often take on MORE work thinking that by serving others I will somehow fix my own problems. Sometimes that works, but most of the times, it just contributes to putting off what needs to be addressed and it comes back 10-fold in unexpected ways that then can’t be ignored or suppressed. So I am trying to get better at looking after myself and my needs and listening to the warning signs to ensure I don’t fizzle out for good and can have a more sustainable and impactful presence in this world.

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Not applicable. Photos taken by myself, friends or family.

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