Consciousness Research · Systems · Applied Innovation

Adam Asmaeil

Founder & Research Lead, Retreat-OS

Working across consciousness, predictive processing, contemplative science, mindfulness, psychedelics, and AI-assisted systems, with a focus on turning complex concepts into practical and scalable solutions for understanding and supporting human change.

Portrait of Adam Asmaeil
About

Research, systems, and applied innovation.

My work sits at the intersection of research, systems thinking, technology, and human change. I am particularly interested in how complex psychological and experiential processes can be translated into clearer models, testable research questions, practical tools, and better-designed systems.

My current work spans consciousness, predictive processing, mindfulness and contemplative science, psychedelic research, retreat design, and AI-assisted knowledge and workflow systems.

Alongside this research direction, I bring more than a decade of international experience across innovation, strategic partnerships, digital products, applied AI, business development, and project delivery in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. I am interested not only in developing concepts, but in asking what can be built from them: a research framework, experiment, visualization, software tool, workflow, or system that can be tested in practice.

Academic Research Program & Frameworks

From retreat science to candidate mechanisms.

Retreat Design Architecture sits at the top of the current research program. Precision Flexibility and the Aliasing/presence hypothesis explore candidate mechanisms or explanatory ideas that may account for particular parts of the broader process.

Research program in development with Ulrich Ott ↗

Retreat Design Architecture (RDA)

RDA studies retreats as longitudinal processes rather than isolated intensive experiences. Its central concern is what happens after re-entry into ordinary life: which capacities acquired or enabled during a retreat remain usable, which conditions interfere with their expression or maintenance, and whether targeted post-retreat interventions can reduce specific barriers.

The current program uses a target–barrier–bridge logic to generate more precise, falsifiable questions about acquisition, re-entry, transfer, maintenance, generalization, decay, and reversal.

Framework in development with Ulrich Ott ↗

Precision Flexibility as a Trainable SkillA Predictive Processing Framework for Mindfulness, Psychedelic Experience, and Integration

A predictive-processing framework examining whether mindfulness-related capacities may support more stable, sensitive, and context-responsive adaptation in how confidence, salience, and experiential authority are allocated across sensory, affective, cognitive, and self-related information.

The framework distinguishes amplification, flexibility, and consolidation and is being developed around measurable constructs and falsifiable predictions.

Preprint · Version 1.0 Conceptual research

Aliasing in ConsciousnessHow Coarse Sampling Produces Drama and How Presence Dissolves It

A hypothesis at the intersection of consciousness research and computational neuroscience, exploring whether some forms of psychological discontinuity or perceived “drama” may partly reflect coarse temporal sampling of ongoing experience. It connects phenomenology with predictive processing, mindfulness, temporal resolution, and precision weighting.

Building

Turning complex ideas into usable systems.

The applied side of the work asks what research and conceptual models can become when translated into software, visualizations, workflows, and operational systems.

Active product development

Retreat-OS

Retreat-OS is a privacy-conscious system for retreat preparation, experience documentation, post-retreat integration, and longitudinal follow-up. It combines structured workflows, human review, provenance, privacy-conscious data handling, and governed AI assistance while keeping sensitive interpretation and high-stakes judgment human-owned.

Precision Map operates within Retreat-OS as a facilitator- and research-facing software module.

Final stages of development

Knowledge Map Studio (KMS)

A network visualization tool for loading VOS-style node and link files and exploring them as interactive knowledge maps. KMS is designed for concept maps, keyword networks, co-occurrence graphs, bibliometric maps, clustered taxonomies, and other weighted relationship networks.

Its value is in making large or complex knowledge structures easier to interpret by surfacing the most significant topics, showing how strongly they connect to other topics, and helping users see clusters, relationships, and thematic patterns that would be difficult to grasp from raw files alone.

Active prototype

KarmaLine

A local-first relationship and opportunity lineage mapping tool for tracing how people, introductions, events, projects, institutions, and opportunities connect over time.

Built around the question “Who led to whom, and what emerged from that connection?”, KarmaLine combines timeline, network, lineage, and database views to make the pathways behind relationships and opportunities easier to see and understand.

Interactive educational tool

Predictive Processing Simulation Tool

An interactive educational model for exploring priors, prediction error, attention, precision weighting, and Bayesian updating.

Its relevance is that predictive processing can be conceptually powerful but difficult to intuit from text alone. The tool helps make abstract ideas easier to understand, test, and communicate by showing how changes in expectations, error signals, and precision can shape interpretation, perception, and response.

Research communication

Interactive Research Demos

Visual and interactive tools that make abstract research concepts easier to inspect, manipulate, challenge, and communicate without treating a visualization as proof of the underlying scientific claim.

Applied Innovation

From ideas to operational impact.

My professional work has included strategic partnerships, product initiatives, AI-enabled workflow design, digital learning, business development, and translating emerging technology into practical operating systems.

External case study · Zapier

How Learn It Live reduced support tickets 40% with an AI-powered chatbot

At Learn It Live, I designed and deployed an AI-powered support workflow that used a structured knowledge source, response-quality feedback, Slack escalation, and direct ticket submission. After launch across Learn It Live and partner sites, the company reported a 40% reduction in support tickets.

Automate the repetitive layer so human attention can stay focused on the cases that actually require it.
Experience

Research and professional background.

A condensed view of the roles most relevant to my current research, systems, innovation, and product work.

Systems Innovation Consultant

Independent

Applied AI, research-workflow design, knowledge synthesis, participant-assessment systems, prototypes, education, and interdisciplinary systems design.

VP of Partnerships & Innovation

Learn It Live · Chicago, USA · Remote

Led strategic partnerships, innovation, product and operational-improvement initiatives for a global digital-learning platform.

Research Assistant

University of Pittsburgh · Pennsylvania, USA · Remote

Supported qualitative research on Syrian refugee health-information networks and chronic-illness management in Jordan, including thematic coding, bilingual transcription/translation, and source research.

Research Editor

Philipps University of Marburg · Germany

Supported a Parkinson's research project through content evaluation, structural editing, feedback, and source validation.

Show additional professional history

Innovation Project Manager: Growth & Digital Innovation

DVAG · Konstanz, Germany · Remote

Growth, client acquisition, digital marketing, data-informed strategy and process improvement.

Sales Manager / Business Development Specialist

Modern Language Center · Amman, Jordan

Market analysis, sales strategy, curriculum design, educational outreach and regional growth.

Business Development Manager / Representative

QNET Ltd · Remote

International outreach, onboarding, lead development, relationship management and partnership cultivation.

Education & Training

Academic and professional foundations.

Selected education and training relevant to the interdisciplinary combination of research, systems, product work, and innovation.

M.A. North American Studies
Philipps University of Marburg
DAAD Scholarship
Economic and Political Training
University of Konstanz
DAAD Scholarship
Licenses & certifications

Leadership & Management

Project Management & Other Tools for Career DevelopmentUniversity of California, Irvine Division of Continuing Education | Coursera
Project Management Principles and Practices SpecializationUniversity of California, Irvine Division of Continuing Education | Coursera
Human Resource Management: HR for People Managers SpecializationUMN Carlson School of Management

Project, Product & Agile

Innovation ManagerWBS GRUPPE
PRINCE2® Foundation Certification TrainingPeopleCert
Professional Agile Leadership™ I (PAL I)Scrum.org
Professional Scrum Master™ I (PSM I)Scrum.org
Software Product Management Specialization (Agile - Scrum)University of Alberta

Psychedelics & Consciousness

Psychedelics and the MindUniversity of California, Berkeley | edX
MAPS Psychedelic FundamentalsMAPS.org
MAPS Psychedelic Crisis Assessment and Intervention Training – EMSMAPS.org
MAPS Psychedelic Crisis Assessment and Intervention Training – Law EnforcementMAPS.org
MAPS Psychedelic Crisis Assessment and Intervention Training – Mental Health ProvidersMAPS.org
A Common Thread
How can complex processes of human learning and change be understood more precisely, represented more clearly, and translated into systems that remain useful beyond the context in which the original insight occurred?

That question connects the theoretical work to the research tools, AI systems, retreat workflows, and products I build. The goal is not complexity for its own sake, but better structure around complex human processes, with structure that can be tested, challenged, improved, and used.

Contact

Research collaboration, applied innovation, and thoughtful systems work.

I’m interested in interdisciplinary research, applied research, product development, and projects that connect complex ideas with usable systems.