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I grew up in the New England woods on an old fashioned working farm. After starting at the University of Alaska majoring in wildlife biology (there was hardly any concept of ecology in 1967!), I went native and lived nearly a year among the Siberian Eskimo people of St. Lawrence Island. Later I attending the University of Costa Rica majoring in natural history, but soon decided being a naturalist in the tradition of Thoreau was more authentic so I left school again to live in the Osa Peninsula from 1969 through 1970. After a life time of living among and working with native Americans, I have been with the Q'ero Indians of the Peruvian Andes since 2000 (see my book, The Andean Codex). And, yes, I eventually completed several degrees and accomplished many things in the world of alternative and integrative medicine. Here are some of those achievements:

• Among the first licensed acupuncturists in the United States in 1983.
• First to diagnose and successfully treat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in 1986.
• Among the first to work with emerging viral diseases with two acclaimed books on the subject, Viral Immunity and Beating the Flu: established first HIV support group in San Diego for AIDS patients in 1983; worked with chronic EBV and associated virally induced chronic fatigue syndrome patients in 1983; worked with chronic non-A/non-B hepatitis before it was established as HCV in 1985.
• Among the first to work with the Evolutionary Medicine model in 1990.
• Coined the term “Integrative Medicine” in 1992 while consulting to Scripps Hospital Encinitas.
• Among the first to work with hormone balancing and bio-identical hormone therapy in 1994.
• First to promote the idea of “Sustainable Medicine” during an international conference on sustainable economy in Havana, Cuba in 1998.
• Among the first to alert the public and medical profession of the link between global climate change and emerging viral diseases with the publication of Viral Immunity (2000).
• First to write about healthy aging in Prolonging Health (2003) and coined the term “Integrative Age Management Medicine”
• Established the standard for acupuncture injection therapy while serving as Academic Dean at the East West College of Natural Medicine in 2005.
• Among the first to stress the concern of emerging viruses including pandemic influenza and the publication of Beating the Flu (2006).
• First to establish advanced an acupuncture training program in injection therapy at a medical school at a major university – University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Division of Complementary Medicine – in 2007.

Dr. Williams, internationally recognized expert in integrative and sustainable medicine and ethno botanical researcher, earned his Doctor of Oriental Medicine from Sino-American University of Oriental Medicine in Los Angeles and completed post-graduate studies and hospital rotations in Beijing and Shanghai, China in 1986. In 2000, he was nominated as a Fellow of the American Association of Integrative Medicine. Dr. Williams is an internationally published author of medical books, non-fiction books, and numerous scientific papers, articles on ethnography and biodiversity, and bilingual poetry. After twenty-eight years in California, he now divides his time between Sarasota, Florida and Peru.  Dr. Williams is currently on the advisory boards of the American Association of Integrative Medicine, the Alternative Medicine Review; Healthy Aging, Age Management Medicine for Physicians; Doctors for Nutrition, Frutaiga, and Life Factor Research. His academic positions include founding faculty member of the California Acupuncture College and Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego, professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Humanistic Studies, Del Mar, CA., the Academic Dean of the East West College of Natural Medicine, and most recently, a visiting faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Division of Complementary and Integrative Medicine.