Roberta Lee, M. D., is the vice chair of the Department of Integrative Medicine for the Center for Health and Healing at Beth Israel's Continuum Center for Health and Healing in New York City. Previously, she served a seven-year stint as the medical director. In addition, she has a clinical practice in internal and integrative medicine. For the last five years, she has traveled regularly to Micronesia as the ethnomedical specialist in an interdisciplinary team of biologists, ethnobotanists, ecologists and conservationists. Her focus has been the traditional uses of kava. Her research interests include cultural and botanical influences on health, healing and promotion of wellness in chronic disease. Dr. Lee attended George Washington University Medical School after receiving a bachelor's degree at the University of California at Berkeley. Following the completion of her residency in internal medicine, she served as a U.S. Public Health service physician in Micronesia for five years. She is one of four graduates in the first class from the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Dr. Lee lectures and writes on the uses of botanical medicine and integrative approaches to a variety of medical conditions. She has served as a member on the ad hoc Botanical Advisory Committee for U.S. Pharmacoepoeia and is a medical advisor for the Herbalist Guild. She is a regular contributing editor to EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing; consulting editor for Herbclip, a botanical news letter from the American Botanical Council; an advisory board member for the American Botanical Council, and an honorary research associate at The New York Botanical Garden.