John K. Williams, M.D.
UCLA-Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior
John K. Williams, M.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. He completed his M.D. degree at the State University of NY at Syracuse, his Psychiatry Residency at the University of Hawaii and an NIMH sponsored two-year HIV/AIDS research postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA. He has expertise in HIV risk reduction in diverse populations especially among minority men who have sex with men (MSM), the use of the Internet for research purposes, and mental health disparities and cross-cultural Psychiatry (i.e., cultural predictors of depression and anxiety among ethnic minority youths). Dr. Williams was funded as a Minority AIDS Research Initiative (MARI) Investigator by the CDC. He is currently funded to develop an HIV prevention intervention for non-gay identifying African American men who have sex with men and women (MSMW). He is also funded through NIMH to develop an HIV risk reduction intervention for HIV-positive African American MSMW who have a history of childhood sexual abuse and to examine biomarkers of stress. Both interventions examine the stigma of being labeled “gay” and attempts to alter sexual risk behaviors among these men as they struggle with their sexual identity.
Dr. Williams is also the Training Director for a Fogarty International Trauma Training Grant with the University of Limpopo in South Africa entitled, The UCLA-South African Research in Trauma Training Program (Phodiso) and Co-Director of Training & Education for the Prevention & Clinical Research Core of the UCLA AIDS Institute. He is also the Training Director and Community Liaison for the NIH funded Center for Culture, Trauma and Mental Health Disparities.