Dr. Nathalie Rieser is a postdoctoral researcher in the Pharmaco-Neuroimaging and Cognitive-Emotional Processing group (PD Dr. Katrin Preller) and the Addictive Disorders group (PD Dr. Marcus Herdener) at the University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, University of Zurich. Her research looks at how psychedelics and other altered states of consciousness affect the brain and why people respond differently to the same treatment. She combines clinical trials in substance use disorders with neuroimaging, with the aim of making psychiatry more personalised.
  
She studied psychology and completed her PhD in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Zurich. During her PhD she led a randomised controlled trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for relapse prevention in alcohol use disorder; the resulting publication received the Swiss Addiction Award 2026. She then spent two years at the Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University, funded by an SNSF Postdoc.Mobility grant. Her current work examines how psychedelics interact with other altered states of consciousness, such as meditation, and the mechanisms through which psychedelics act in substance use disorders.