Our Team

Joshua White

  • Joshua (he/him) is Fireside Project’s Founder. He is a lawyer, peer support advocate, and psychedelic researcher who believes in the power of peer support and the role of support lines as foundational components of an equitable mental-health ecosystem.

    Prior to founding Fireside Project, Joshua volunteered for many years as a counselor on Safe & Sound’s TALK Line and a psychedelic peer support provider for the Zendo Project.

    Before devoting his life to the psychedelic field, Joshua spent more than a decade as a Deputy City Attorney at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, where he focused on suing businesses exploiting vulnerable communities, serving as general counsel to City departments, and co-teaching a nationally renowned clinic at Yale Law School. He also clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced civil litigation at Conrad | Metlitzky | Kane.

Jess Bilbrey

  • Jessica is a strategic operations leader with over 15 years of healthcare industry experience developing, implementing, and supporting the complex operational infrastructures for multiple facets of healthcare operations. She specializes in driving growth, transformation and ensuring operational excellence within various operating areas, including customer service, human resources, finance and more.

    Jessica is passionate about the connection between medical and mental health as well as whole person wellness. Prior to joining Fireside Project, she led operational projects and teams that supported complex medical and behavioral needs. As Fireside Project's COO, Jessica leads initiatives that continue to improve the support we provide callers and the training we provide to volunteers.

Chelsea Keeney

  • Chelsea is a creative marketing leader with over 10 years of experience. From providing strategy to international legacy brands at large advertising agencies to small startups with tight budgets and resources, she’s able to create holistic marketing strategies and find meaning and connection to audiences, which is often lost in the marketing world.

    As a member of the neurodivergent community, Chelsea has proven how valuable it is to have out-of-the-box thinkers in leadership roles. Some of her superpowers include an ability to improve processes, creative problem-solving, an eagle eye for visual aesthetics, unparalleled pattern recognition, and a wild imagination.

    Chelsea is passionate about the healing powers of psychedelics and is motivated to help Fireside grow and help people of all backgrounds get access to psychedelic support and experience meaningful, healing, and life-changing journeys.

Will Tovar

  • William is an Air Force combat veteran, father of 4, and an ambassador for the healing power of psychedelics. After completing his service in the Air Force, William began working alongside his brothers and sisters at Veterans Walk and Talk. His work has focused on the use of psychedelics as a tool for healing amongst veterans. He believes that these tools can help veterans process their traumatic experiences and find self love and acceptance. He is passionate about helping others and believes that growth can come in many forms. In his free time he loves to train jiu jitsu, practice yoga, and take his babies to the San Diego zoo (they go there a lot!).

Wesley Bellanca

  • Wesley is a psychedelic writer, artist and web developer with over 15 years of psychedelic peer support experience and over 25 years of web and tech industry experience. Wesley has exhibited his artwork alongside the world’s leading visionary artists, and interviewed many of the leading figures in the psychedelic movement. He believes that when used properly, psychedelics can be a key leverage point in changing the consciousness of the Western world from a paradigm of materialism, distraction, and separation to a more interconnected, meaningful, and collaborative one.

Aleks Taylor

  • Aleks (they/he) is a Professional Counselor Associate, working with an LGBTQ+ therapy center as a clinical therapist, and has completed their education to become a trained psilocybin facilitator in the state of Oregon. Aleks earned their Master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling with a focus in mindfulness-based transpersonal counseling from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

    As a BIPOC member of the LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent communities, Aleks has a passion for ensuring members of these communities, and other underserved populations, have equitable access to the healing power of psychedelic medicines.

    Over the past 12 years, Aleks has gained work and educational experiences in education, world religions, equity and social justice work, psychology and counseling, neurodivergent studies, gender studies, and psychedelic studies. Through foundations dedicated to diminishing financial barriers to access facilitator training, Aleks will be helping support new cohorts of Oregon psilocybin facilitators in a way that puts marginalized voices at the forefront of the psilocybin movement and will be creating equity plans for future service centers in Oregon.

    When Aleks is not on the line, you may be able to find them on tour following their favorite bands, in the woods mushroom and bone hunting, poorly playing ukulele, or playing (and winning) board games.

Dr. Mayanthi Fernando

  • Dr. Mayanthi Fernando is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Cultural Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She teaches and writes on multispecies futures, bodies and the senses, religion and secularism, and law and religious pluralism.

    Dr. Fernando earned her B.A. from Harvard University and her Ph.D. from University of Chicago.

Lindsay Kimpel

  • Lindsay (she/they) is a Psychedelic Integration and Transformational Recovery Coach, Yoga Teacher, and Harm Reduction Activist.

    She has extensive education, experience, and passion for supporting people through their psychedelic journeys and integrating afterwards. Lindsay volunteers with Zendo Project providing on-site psychedelic harm reduction at many festivals, such as Burning Man, Envision Festival, and Lightning in a Bottle. Lindsay also specializes in helping people overcome their opioid dependencies through her dynamic coaching practice. She spent significant time living and working in Mexico at a psychedelic detox and psychospiritual retreat center. Much of her time there was spent learning from a Bwiti trained Nganga and working with iboga and other plant medicines.

    Prior to dedicating her life to psychedelic harm reduction and raising people's consciousness, Lindsay previously worked in law and politics as a Paralegal and Legislative Assistant. After having a calling to travel down to Oaxaca’s mountainous cloud forests, she had a solo psychedelic spiritual awakening enhanced by los niños santos. Since having this mystical experience, her life’s trajectory majorly shifted, she hasn’t looked back with any regrets, and continues on the limitless path of creating beloved community, conscious expansion, healing, and spirituality. Lindsay resides in San Francisco with her miniature Australian Shepherd, and enjoys electric skateboarding, hiking, martial arts, snowboarding, surfing, traveling, video games, writing, and yoga.

Jon Vorpe

  • Jon (he/him) is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist with a profound interest in the healing and transformative effects of psychedelic medicines. Having worked with a diverse range of clients over the course of his career, including the unhoused, teenagers, children, families, couples, and adult individuals, Jon has shaped a career of open-hearted curiosity around the ways in which human beings are interconnected. Working with the unhoused, Jon developed an array of skills rooted in harm reduction, empathy, and an unwavering desire to dismantle unjust systems. He brings a sense of enthusiasm, curiosity, and deep care to the field of psychedelic harm reduction, all in service of learning more about the ways in which plant medicines can radically alter human consciousness.

Cené Salsedo Bryant

  • Cené (she/her) is a cis, straight, femme woman of Taino descent, a scientist, herbalist and an advocate for community members seeking to engage with Earth Medicines for healing, discovery, wellness, and joy. She envisions a world where all people have equal access to plant medicine as their birthright. Cené loves whales, her dogs, the ocean, and nurturing plants.

Kelly Dundon

  • Kelly (she/her) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and certified yoga instructor with an interest in alternative ways of knowing and healing that include psychedelic medicine, somatic experiencing, being with nature, and movement. She is enthusiastic and hopeful about how psychedelic medicine can assist folks in healing from relational traumas, exploring previously unchartered aspects of their identity, connecting with nature and all living things, and reconnecting with their childlike sense of curiosity and play. Before joining Fireside as a Support Line Supervisor, Kelly volunteered on the line for over a year, an experience she holds near and dear that has been pivotal in her growth as a psychedelic supporter, practitioner, and advocate. Kelly is also an active participant in supporting the local food system in Northwest Arkansas, where she calls home.

LouLou Ford

  • LouLou (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology and a mental health practitioner who has worked providing long-term transpersonal and depth-oriented psychology in community mental health settings which make these transformational modes of healing more equitably accessible.

    She believes deeply in the power of psychedelic medicines to heal and nurture the individual and collective psyches, and in the importance of peer support as a tool for harm-reduction and a resource for safe, non-judgmental exploration of the profound impacts of non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Michael Fentin

  • Michael (he/him) is an EMT and meditation teacher with a background in theatre. He has experience working in wilderness therapy and is a certified Wilderness First Responder.

    He is a student of transformative experience, from marathon running, to fasting, to wilderness guiding, to silent retreat and psychedelics.

    Michael is studying to be a nurse and looks forward to helping bring safe psychedelic experiences to more people. He is excited about peer support and the important role Fireside plays in the larger psychedelic movement.

River Jenkins

  • River is a graduate student with a B.S. in Psychology and ten years of experience facilitating in various forms. She is deeply interested in the psychopharmacological investigation of psychedelics, equity and inclusion in psychedelic therapy, and the potential of psychedelics to create novel modes of consciousness that can lead to radical personal and interpersonal transformations. She is also passionate about exploring the intersections of psychedelic experiences and collective liberation practices. Her work with Fireside began as a volunteer invested in providing high-quality emotional support for psychedelic voyagers, particularly for fellow BIPOC and Queer folks who are often underserved by the community. This focus on BIPOC and Queer inclusion continues to inform her work with Fireside and inspire her future practice as a licensed psilocybin facilitator in the state of Oregon.

    When she isn’t on the line you can find her building her off-grid permaculture community in the High Desert, kayaking, or exploring the forests and coastlines of the Pacific Northwest.

Anthony Pleetanino

  • Anthony (he/him) is an Interfaith Chaplain and psychedelic integration coach whose work centers around the mythological and ritual maps that help individuals and communities navigate life’s transitions. Before joining fireside project, he worked as a hospice chaplain, a MAPS night attendant, and the co-founder of Portland Psychedelic Society’s Interfaith Integration Circle.

    Anthony earned a certificate in Psychedelic Therapy and Research from the California Institute for Integral Studies in 2022, and is committed to serving as a bridge between clinical and religious approaches to psychedelic journeying, wellness, and life in general.

    He tends to his own process of healing and growth through healthy doses of contemplative practice, Beat literature, Gong Fu tea ceremony, and NBA Basketball... as well as potentially unhealthy doses of the Enneagram.

Will Webb

  • Will is an integrative wellness coach specializing in mindfulness and an existential approach to help others navigate life's obstacles. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and served as an Army Officer for about a decade, leading soldiers through three Combat Training Center rotations, an Afghanistan deployment, and a stateside vulnerability assessment. A Ranger School graduate and Special Forces (Green Beret) veteran, he held positions such as Platoon Leader, Mortar Platoon Leader, Scout Platoon Leader, and Detachment Commander with the 3rd Special Forces Group. After being medically discharged due to injuries, he explored various healing modalities, including a transformative Ayahuasca retreat in Peru with the Heroic Hearts Project. Will now serves as a Psychedelic Peer Support Supervisor with the Fireside Project, coaches veterans, athletes, entrepreneurs, and executives, and is pursuing a Master's Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of the Cumberlands. His goal is to open a practice providing psychedelic-assisted therapy for those seeking relief from depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress.