Series XVIII: Dr. William "Bill" Valenti Trillium Collection, 1983 - 2018

Dr. William M. Valenti was born in 1945 and grew up in the Rochester suburb of Irondequoit, graduating from Eastridge High School in 1963. After earning a B.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1968 and M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1972, he returned to Rochester to complete postdoctoral training in infectious diseases at the University of Rochester. He joined the faculty of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1975.

When AIDS emerged as a public health crisis in the early 1980s, Dr. Valenti became one of the foremost local experts on the disease. He worked closely with local media to provide authoritative information, appearing frequently in print and television features on AIDS. In 1989, Dr. Valenti and Dr. Stephen Scheibel co-founded Community Health Network, Inc., a not-for-profit community based medical facility for HIV care in Rochester. By 2009, Community Health Network (by then known as AIDS Community Health Center) would have a staff of 60 serving 600 patients. In 1995, Dr. Valenti became the Medical Director of Rochester Primary Care Network, a consortium of 11 community health centers providing medical care to underserved populations. On January 1, 2010, AIDS Community Health Center merged with AIDS Rochester to form Trillium Health, expanding its services to provide primary, non-HIV related health care to the LGBTQ community in the Rochester region.

As of 2016, Dr. Valenti serves on the staff of Trillium Health as Senior Vice President for Strategic Advancement and Staff Physician. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He serves as Chair of the Infectious Diseases Subcommitte of the Medical Society of New York and recently served as Chair of the Hepatitis C Guidelines Committee for the New York State Department of Health.

In 2017, Dr. Valenti wrote and published AIDS: A Matter of Urgency, A Doctor's Memoir. The book chronicled the experiences of Dr. Valenti, his colleagues, patients, and friends as they worked to fight in the HIV/AIDS in the early days and beyond. In 2021, a play based on Dr. Valenti's memoir was written and performed for limited audiences.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Valenti has participated in numerous professional groups, including the Monroe County Medical Society, the New York State Health Department AIDS Institute, the American Medical Association, Association for Professionals in Infection Control, Physicians Association for AIDS Care (PAAC), and the HIV Medicine Association. He is a past editor of NUMEDX.com, The AIDS Reader/Medscape, and the American Journal of Infection Control. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and scientific abstracts.