ALASKA
ENTHEOGENIC
AWARENESS
COUNCIL
ALASKA
ENTHEOGENIC
AWARENESS
COUNCIL
AKEAC Board Members
Regina Randall
Founder & Chair
Regina is a from Holy Cross, Alaska, an Athabaskan village located on the Yukon river. She grew up in rural Alaska where her mother, Marie Demientieff, worked as both a traditional counselor and substance abuse counselor. In the spring of 2007, Regina traveled to Peru where she was introduced to the world of shamanic healing. Inspired by her experience, she moved to Peru in 2009 where she spent three years training with indigenous curanderos in the Amazon rainforest.
Regina has a deep reverence and respect for the Shipibo-Conibo tribe and resonates strongly with their healing practices. She has organized and facilitated many healing retreats in Peru and is passionate about sharing the wonders of entheogenic plant medicine with the world.
Regina works as an indigenous rights advocate and political organizer in Alaska. She has a BA in psychology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in political psychology at Arizona State University.
Betsi Oliver
Vice Chair
Betsi is a life coach and integration specialist in Anchorage, Alaska. Her professional background includes science communication, wilderness guiding, and community development. She first learned about entheogens in an immersive course with Dennis McKenna and Kathleen Harrison in 2010, and later had her own awakening experiences, first at Burning Man and later in Peru at an Ayahuasca retreat center, where she was in service for several months. She is dedicated to creating containers, both one-on-one and in groups, where people can heal and grow.
Markian Babij
After completing a degree in psychology, Markian travelled through Africa, Mexico and Indonesia studying indigenous botanical medicines and entheogens for two years prior to starting Naturopathic medical school. He was raised amongst botanicals and later in life studied the complexities of varied phytochemicals in his Naturopathic training. To further his education, Markian completed a fellowship with the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology. In oncology, the importance of mind/body medicine became apparent in confronting end of life issues with his patients. To find God "within" became an important aspect of his medical practice.
In Oncology practice, integrative medicine treatments of post-traumatic stress have evolved to include entheogens. Dr. Babij supports further education and research to better understand how entheogens can be safely used to improve quality of life through cancer survivorship and mental health issues.
AKEAC Advisory Board
Candace Lewis
Candace aims to revolutionize mental health care by exploring dynamic environmental and genetic influences on brain-behavior relationships. A native of Alaska, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Next, she earned a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience at Arizona State University on a Harry S. Truman Scholarship while investigating the effects of early life stress on addiction behavior and neuroepigenetics.
Candace received a Fulbright Fellowship to learn advanced neuroimaging and psychedelic research methods at the University Hospital of Zurich. She was also awarded the Science Foundation Arizona Bisgrove Fellowship to investigate the interplay between early experiences, epigenetics, physiology and behavior.
Taken together, her research centers around the age-old question of nature versus nurture with a modern twist. Candace seeks to unravel how genetics and experiences continuously interact to shape neurobiology and behavior.
Larry Norris
Larry Norris, PhD is the cofounder of Decriminalize Nature, which began in Oakland, CA in 2019 and has sprouted across the US. He is also the co-founder of Entheogenic Research Integration and Education (ERIE), a nonprofit organization which offers education and integration support for those interested in entheogens. His doctoral research focuses on ayahuasca experiences and integration, as well as expanding integration concepts beyond the psychotherapeutic paradigm.
He believes it is an unalienable right to have one’s own relationship with Nature, and encourages empowering grassroots communities to build local and culturally relevant support structures related to entheogens.
