Alexander Shulgin

Alexander Shulgin
Shulgin (right) with his wife Ann in 2011
Born	Alexander Theodore Shulgin (1925-06-17)June 17, 1925 Berkeley, California, U.S.
Died	June 2, 2014(2014-06-02) (aged 88) Lafayette, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known for	Rediscovering MDMA 2C Family DOx Family PiHKAL TiHKAL Shulgin Rating Scale Shulgin Index Shulgin Research Institute Various phenethylamines and tryptamines
Spouses	Nina Gordon (deceased) Ann Gotlieb (deceased)
Children	1
Awards	DEA Awards (numerous)
Scientific career
Fields	Chemistry, psychology, philosophy, biology
Institutions	MAPS Dow Chemical San Francisco State University San Francisco General Hospital Bio-Rad Laboratories Cognitive Liberty/Ethics Centre United States Navy

Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014) was an American medicinal chemist, biochemist, organic chemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and author. He is credited with introducing MDMA, commonly known as "ecstasy", via academic journals and papers to psychologists in the late 1970s for psychopharmaceutical use and for the discovery, synthesis and personal bioassay of over 230 psychoactive compounds for their psychedelic and entactogenic potential.^[1]

In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin compiled the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL (standing for Phenethylamines and Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved), from notebooks that extensively described their work and personal experiences with these two classes of psychoactive drugs. Shulgin performed seminal work into the descriptive synthesis of many of these compounds. Some of Shulgin's noteworthy discoveries include compounds of the 2C family (such as 2C-B) and compounds of the DOx family (such as DOM).

Due in part to Shulgin's extensive work in the field of psychedelic research and the rational drug design of psychedelic drugs, he has since been dubbed the "godfather of psychedelics".^[1][2]