Ashley Fathergill is the Director of Marketing at the Verdes Foundation. She is deeply passionate about providing ways in which wellness works for the individual which inspired her interest in working with Verdes.
Over the last 15 years Ashley has worked with large organizations through roles of both sales and marketing. Her passion for creating a space where organizations can magnify the impact within their internal culture, external reach and overall voice where missions can be heard is her favorite place to be.
After leaving Ohio back in 2009, Ashley has grown to love Albuquerque and all of the wonderful people who make this city great. For the last 5 years she has worked as an entrepreneur continuing her mission in wellness through YogaZo, a mobile yoga studio, where she founded, operates and continues to teach on a weekly basis all in an effort of #yogagivingback.
Alongside yoga, Ashley continues to work with entrepreneurs with the mission of “helping businesses help themselves” through Mint Marketing, her consulting firm in town. In her (minimal) free time, Ashley can be found getting lost in a book, catching a movie with her husband or hanging with her pups, Winston and Nelly who are constantly in search of their next meal or stroll to the park.
Evan Herrmann is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University Medical Center and a Research Scientist II at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Evan completed his graduate training in Experimental Psychology at the University of Vermont (2007-2013) as a research fellow in the Human Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory. Evan then completed postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2013-15), and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (2015-2016), before joining the Division on Substance Use Disorders as a faculty member in July 2016.
Evan’s research is focused on the effects of commonly used psychoactive drugs on human behavior, most notably the behavioral pharmacology of cannabis and other cannabinoids. Recent topics of inquiry include laboratory studies examining the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of passive cannabis smoke exposure and oral cannabis (brownies) consumption, as well as new projects examining the therapeutic potential of cannabis/cannabinoids as treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and chronic pain.
In addition to this research activity, Evan teaches courses on Substance Use Disorders and Research Design and Analysis, and mentors undergraduate studies via supervision of research thesis projects.
Donald I. Abrams, MD. is chief of the Hematology-Oncology Division at San Francisco General Hospital and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He has an Integrative Oncology consultation practice at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Brown University in 1972 and graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1977.
After completing an Internal Medicine residency at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, he became a fellow in Hematology/Oncology at the Cancer Research Institute of the University of California, San Francisco in 1980. He was one the original clinician/investigators to recognize and define many early AIDS-related conditions. He has long been interested in clinical trials of complementary and alternative medicine interventions for HIV/AIDS and cancer, including evaluations of medicinal marijuana.
In 1997 he received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct clinical trials of the short-term safety of cannabinoids in HIV infection. Subsequently he was granted funds by the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research to continue studies of the effectiveness of cannabis in a number of clinical conditions. He completed a placebo-controlled study of smoked cannabis in patients with painful HIV-related peripheral neuropathy as well as a study evaluating vaporization as a smokeless delivery system for medicinal.
His last NIDA-funded trial investigated the possible pharmacokinetic interaction between vaporized cannabis and opioid analgesics in patients with chronic pain. He is now conducting an NIH-funded trial investigating vaporized cannabis in patients with Sickle Cell disease. He co-authored the chapter on “Cannabinoids and Cancer” in the Oxford University Press Integrative Oncology text that he co-edited with Andrew Weil. He co-edits the NCI PDQ CAM Cannabinoids and Cancer website. He was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s committee that published The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research in January 2017.
Founder, Aunt Zelda’s, Calla Spring Wellness, and Zelda Therapeutics. Mara specializes in the development of treatment protocols utilizing Bio Pharmaceutical grade cannabis extracts for seriously ill patients in California. She co-founded of Aunt Zelda’s, Calla Spring Wellness, and Zelda Therapeutics in order to provide real outcomes for patients with serious diseases.
Prior to Aunt Zelda’s, Mara worked as a process engineer, helping Fortune 500 companies create intelligent software by utilizing the Rational Unified Process. This experience has enabled her to take a detailed and scientific approach to utilizing cannabis as a Bio Pharmaceutical grade treatment.
Gordon sits on the boards of Zelda Therapeutics, Daya Foundation, International Cannabis Standards Board (ICSB), and Hmbldt. She has presented at multiple CME-accredited medical conferences, including Patients Out of Time 2014, and at POT 2016, delivered a 3.5 hour course along with Drs Cristina Sanchez, Manuel Guzman, and Joe D. Goldstrich. Gordon has spoken at medical cannabis conferences in Australia, Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Israel, as well as numerous events throughout the USA and worldwide. These include CannMed held at Harvard Medical School in April 2016, and Medical Marijuana for Professionals 2014 and 2016. Her work is featured in the upcoming documentaries, “Weed the People”, “Mary Janes: Women of Weed”, and in Joe Dolce’s book, “Brave New Weed”.
