Psychedelics on campus: 5 Questions for Intercollegiate Psychedelics Network co-founder Victor Acero

Acero discusses IPN's goals and vision for the next generation of psychedelics professionals.

As a college student, Victor Acero wanted to understand his favorite Beatles songs on a deeper level, so he tried listening to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Penny Lane while tripping on LSD. At the time, Acero was studying materials science, and after he graduated, he entered a graduate program at University of Pennsylvania. A year into his PhD, he transferred into a bioengineering lab to research how psychedelics might help address inflammation after traumatic brain injuries, and how to engineer new psychedelic compounds. 

Acero helped found a psychedelics group at UPenn and connected with students at other universities to lead the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Network or IPN, which aims to provide psychedelics-related professional development to people under 35. The Microdose spoke with Acero about the group’s goals and vision for the next generation of psychedelics professionals. 

What spurred you and the other co-founders to start the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Network?

Some of the co-founders had met at conferences and began talking about how useful it would be if students across universities worked together. Initially, the idea was community; we felt like we didn’t have enough community at our respective universities to talk about our interests. We put on a conference called the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Summit in 2019, and we felt so invigorated after that. We started organizing another conference in 2020, but then the pandemic hit, and we had to cancel. We had this huge team of volunteers put together, and we felt like it would be really sad if we didn’t use that energy for something. So we started laying together the groundwork for the Intercollegiate Psychedelics Network. 

In thinking about our goals, we realized that at every university, every student group would be starting from scratch, so we thought we could give people a jumping off point: ideas for programing, resources, connection, support. We also felt that there was no professional development organization in the space. Every other field has that: if you're a bioengineer, you can join the bioengineering society; if you’re a psychologist, there's an association for you. Those groups have conferences, career exploration opportunities, professional development events, opportunities to present your work, mentoring, and an opportunity to find your community of peers. Unless you're at an institution like Imperial College London or Johns Hopkins, there's no way you're going to have those things for psychedelics. We felt that our field couldn’t sustainably grow without such a group, so we created it. 

What do you all offer to members?

Currently, we have several teams. One handles community development — they plan talks and  lectures, and maintain a job board and a career webinar series, as well as the group’s Discord channel. Another team, IPN Labs, organizes journal clubs, book clubs, and seminars. Lately they’ve been declaring a monthly theme so that we can start incorporating all our seminars and discussions into a Psychedelics 101 syllabus. For instance, in the fall, our theme was set and settings, so all IPN Labs events centered around that. They also host events to help students understand the research process, like navigating Institutional Review Board approvals, and how to approach experiments and data analysis.

Our PsychedeliX team runs our flagship program, which is in its third year; we choose 30 students who are matched with a talk group that includes a coach, who’s usually an alum from prior year, and they practice giving talks. We have applicants from all different areas: clinical applications, law, media — one year we even had folks performing art inspired by psychedelics. We try to find a place for everyone who’s interested.

In the future, we hope to add even more; for instance, we’d love to have a moot court for students interested in law where people can develop and argue a case, a consulting competition where you’re laying out solutions for a company, or a finance lab where you analyze investments and portfolios. 

Psychedelics have really entered the public mainstream over the last few years. What has membership been like since the IPN formed in 2020?

There’s been exponential growth. Our first year, we didn’t really track membership; people just showed up to our events. In our second year, we created a way for people to become formal members, and we had about 200 people join us. This year, we’ve had about 500-600 new members since October, and our social media following has grown quite a bit, too. 

There’s a lot going on in public policy related to psychedelics; states are legalizing psilocybin service models, and people are advocating for changes to the patent system. Does the IPN take stances on policy? 

When we first launched IPN, we had a social impact team, but we quickly realized it didn’t fit in with our mission: to develop students into leaders. If students undergoing that process bring about policy change, then fantastic. Instead of pushing any particular bill, we would want to show students how they could accomplish that — perhaps we’d set up a seminar series on how to write policy memos, how to do lobbying, or have a Q&A with people working in policy. We’re supporting students in gaining skills and learning how to do professional work in this area because it relates to their professional development, rather than focusing on the outcome of a specific policy. 

The landscape of psychedelics as a professional field is very much still developing. What do you see in the future for members of  IPN?

Some of the skills we’re learning are applicable to any field: project management, teamwork, challenging yourself in new and unexpected ways, and learning to communicate. It’s noteworthy that none of the leadership team had any experience founding a nonprofit when we started. The feedback we’ve gotten from other people in the field is that everyone is really excited that we exist. People love the idea of working with students, and getting to nurture and support the next generation of leaders in this space. We take great pride in that. Ten years down the road, we’ll be the people making large impacts in the psychedelic space, and it’s exciting that we’re connecting now. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.