Roger R. Williams

Roger R. Williams was an internationally recognized expert in the field of cardiovascular genetics and professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He was also prolific in obtaining research grants.

Williams was also the medical director at Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators and director of the U.'s Cardiovascular Genetics Research Clinic.

He developed effective new tools for evaluating and helping families with strong familial predisposition to early coronary disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, breast cancer, and morbid obesity.

Williams collaborated or consulted with scientists from institutions throughout the world. He was the author of more than 165 professional publications.[1]

His son Tom said he didn't even know his father was famous until he tripped over a box of awards and plaques in the attic one day and asked about them.[2]

Williams was a native of Ogden, Utah, and received his BS degree from Weber State University and his MD degree from the University of Utah School of Medicine. He did his internship and residency at Duke University Medical Center and had post-doctoral fellowships at the National Cancer Institute and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, where he was a tenured medical epidemiologist in 1975–1976.

He was a devoted husband to his wife, Linda, father to their seven children, and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He died tragically in the crash of a Swissair Flight off the coast of Nova Scotia on September 2, 1998. He was on his way to Geneva, Switzerland, to chair a meeting at the World Health Organization with a group he founded to promote prevention of premature death through early diagnosis of genetic cholesterol abnormalities.