KATRIN PRELLER, PhD

CHIEF SCIENTIST

Katrin Preller received her M.Sc. (Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology) from University of Konstanz, Germany. For her PhD, Dr. Preller joined the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Zurich, Switzerland, where she investigated the neurobiological and social-cognitive long-term effects of cocaine, MDMA, and heroin use. After completing her PhD, she joined the Neuropsychopharmacology and Brain Imaging lab at the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, investigating the effects of psychedelic substances on self-perception, social cognition, and multimodal processing using different brain imaging techniques. Dr. Preller received an SNSF PostDoc mobility fellowship and worked as a Postdoc at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL, London, UK, and Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Subsequently, she was appointed as Junior Group Leader at the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Zurich, and holds a position as Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Preller is a recipient of the Pfizer Research Award and the Swiss Society for Biological Psychiatry Young investigators award. Her group’s research focus is centered on the neurobiology and pharmacology of cognitive and emotional processes in health and disease using multi-modal behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging techniques, the development of novel treatment approaches, and the interaction between pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments. She is studying the potential of psychedelic substances as treatment for psychiatric illnesses in clinical trials and aims at uncovering the clinical mechanism of action to inform psychedelic-assisted therapy. Dr. Preller supports various mentoring and training programs for young researchers and therapists. She holds a position as Biomarker and Experimental Medicine Leader at F.Hoffmann-La Roche.