On November 23, 2025, Shulgin Farm welcomed Dr. Gül Dölen’s UC Berkeley Psychedelics course.
They arrived with an extraordinary idea: to install a series of chemical structure chandeliers that now hang in Sasha’s barn. Six luminous “molecule chandeliers,” each assembled from 3D models of psychedelic compounds, now float overhead in quiet tribute to the Shulgins’ lifelong devotion to chemistry and consciousness. The students named the installation “Sasha’s Stars.”
Dr. Dölen’s course was taught at UC Berkeley for the first time this year, and the timing carried a kind of poetic symmetry: it coincided with Sasha’s birthday anniversary.
As Dr. Dölen shared:
This class project was really special for a number of reasons. First, I taught the Psychedelics course at UC Berkeley for the first time, which happened to be Sasha’s Birthday anniversary. Second, it was an honor to work on this project with such an incredibly motivated and curious group of students, who, through this project, were ushered into the broader psychedlics’ community in the Bay Area. Third, since Sasha earned his PhD at UC Berkeley, having UC Berkeley undergraduates install this project in his barn felt like an especially important way to honor his legacy. I am grateful to the Shulgin Foundation and the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics for providing support to make this an unforgettable day!
As part of the course, students read PIHKAL and explored the compounds cataloged in PIHKAL and TIHKAL as chemical stories: structures with histories, synthesis pathways, effects, and cultural context. Then they built them!
Mackenzie Wilkinson, PhD candidate in neuroscience at UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and graduate student instructor for the course, oversaw much of the project and captured the scale of what the students took on:
This was an enormous amount of work, but the students remained engaged and excited from start to finish. Every week, multiple students would research and assemble 3D psychedelic molecules and give small presentations from PiHKAL and TiHKAL pertaining to the acute effects and synthesis of the drugs…I’ve never seen a class so eager to engage with a project like this, and I think it opened the door for a lot of them to become involved with psychedelic science.
This is exactly the kind of learning Sasha believed in: hands-on, collaborative, self-motivated, and grounded in careful observation.
The chandeliers now installed in the barn represent a meeting point between eras: Sasha and Ann’s pioneering work and today’s emerging generation of psychedelic researchers and students.
In Mackenzie’s words:
Many students had limited backgrounds in chemistry or neuroscience, but they dove head first into the project as if they were experts… Many students approached me at the conclusion of the trip and let me know that this had been one of their favorite accomplishments at Berkeley thus far, and that the Psychedelics course was among their favorite college courses ever taken.
Shulgin Farm has always been a place where people came to learn — formally and informally — through conversation, shared meals, late-night debates, careful documentation, and the rare kind of openness that makes discovery possible.
Visit Shulgin Farm — or host your own gathering
We’re grateful to Dr. Dölen, Mackenzie, and every student who helped bring this project to life. Their work is now part of the Farm’s story.
If you’ve ever wanted to experience Shulgin Farm in person, we invite you to visit.
And if you’re part of a class, lab group, research community, or organization that wants to host an event or educational gathering at the Farm, we would love to explore that with you.