Kuranda Morgan

Project focus: The Fellow will explore the resurgent field of psychedelic science, identify areas of shared interest between academic and civic stakeholders, and create opportunities for civic science projects and ethos in collaboration with the BCSP.

Kuranda is the Civic Science Fellow at the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics at UC Berkeley. For the last decade, she has led initiatives that improve capabilities for evidence-informed decision-making through a blend of rigor and creativity. Her professional and research experience focus on ‘how’ to improve system collaboration between actors working at the nexus of research, innovation, public policy, and social change.

Before joining the BCSP, she was the Evidence Lead at Nesta, the U.K.’s innovation agency for social good, where she championed a co-creative approach to capacity-building that is both informed by research uptake literature and embedded in practice. She has co-designed learning programs, curriculum, and knowledge exchange activities that are used widely by U.K. government bodies, universities, and knowledge intermediaries to improve their ability to collaborate, innovate, and evidence their work. Previously, she worked in international development, where she cultivated global networks of institutions and academics dedicated to building regional leadership in the generation of rigorous, policy-relevant research. Kuranda holds an M.Sc. in Social Policy Research from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Social Welfare and American Studies.

For fun, Kuranda enjoys singing Bossa Nova, dabbling in various creative outlets, and finding magic in the mundane.