Douglas Sharon, PhD, is an anthropologist (UCLA), ethnobotanist, and scholar of shamanism who has directed both the University of California, Los Angeles, Museum of Anthropology at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology.

He received his doctorate in anthropology at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), where he worked during the 1970s as a field anthropologist at the Latin American Center.

For more than 40 years he has conducted field research and published works on pre-Columbian and modern shamanic practices in Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia. His book El Chamán de los Cuatro Vientos1 and his ethnographic film Eduardo el Curandero2 about the life of Peruvian healer Eduardo Calderón Palomino are widely used in university-level anthropology courses. Currently, Dr. Sharon directs projects in cultural anthropology and lectures internationally on integrating traditional healing practices with modern public health systems.