Endowed Professors

Fadel Zeidan is a Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology in the Center of Pain Medicine and is Director of the Pain Health and Mindfulness Laboratory.  He is also the inaugural Endowed Professor of UCSD’s T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion. He is also a Co-Founder and Director of Neuroscience at the UC San Diego Center for Psychedelic Research. Fadel’s research is also focused on how psychedelics, cannabis and meditation can alleviate suffering and promote a kinder world. His research is focused on identifying the neurobiological mechanisms supporting the modulation and cultivation of empathy and compassion.

His research is currently funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health to conduct placebo controlled clinical trials to assess if and how mindfulness affects chronic pain. His research program has expanded to investigate the effect and mechanisms involved in the modulation of pain and health by natural products like psilocybin, DMT and cannabis. His team just discovered for the first time that psilocybin can produce dramatic improvements in chronic pain, trauma, depression and well-being.

He is an active mentor of more than 20 undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral trainees. His work has also been featured in traditional media outreach (CNN; NPR; Time Magazine, CBS and others), Tedx and personally presented his work to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama in Mongolia. Fadel was also awarded the 2014 National Institutes of Health Mitchell Max Award for Research Excellence.

Dr. Monique Smith is a Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion Professor and an Assistant Professor at the University of California San Diego in the Departments of Neurobiology and Neurosciences.

She is a first-generation college student and received both her B.A. and M.A in Psychology from California State University San Marcos, under the mentorship of Dr. Keith Trujillo. She worked with Drs. Chris Evans and Amynah Pradhan at UCLA, where she developed her passion for understanding chronic pain.

Dr. Smith received her Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Oregon Health & Science University working with Drs. Ryabinin and Heinricher. It was during her graduate studies that she serendipitously discovered the social transfer of pain, and embarked upon a journey to study the neural mechanisms of empathy. Finally, she conducted her postdoctoral training at Stanford University with Dr. Robert Malenka, where she used cutting-edge neurotechnologies to investigate the social transfer of pain and analgesia.