McKenna Leighton first discovered the power of psychedelics during her undergraduate years at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she balanced a B.S. in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology with studies in the renowned History of Consciousness department. After developing a portfolio of research experiences in ecology, molecular genomics, and user-experience design, she joined a small team of clinical researchers at Lykos Therapeutics in 2020. During her time with Lykos, she worked tirelessly to support the Phase 2 & 3 and Expanded Access programs for MDMA-Assisted Therapy for PTSD, while advocating for diversity issues with considerable success.
McKenna Leighton currently sits on the MAPS Fiscal Sponsorship Committee and serves as the Clinical Research Manager at MAPS, where she builds the organization’s infrastructure for conducting both qualitative and clinical research, designs and executes research projects, and supports regulatory battles with the FDA. She loves working in the field of psychedelics because of its multitude of intersections and high-stakes. She passionately believes in our collective capacity to create viable futures together. McKenna’s personal practices include playful movement, poetry, somatic experiencing, creative writing, and reading critical theory.