You found me! Here's what you can find at this web site: Biography Vita Publications Web Sites I Like Contact Info A link to the web site for my new book: Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy

Amy L. Lansky, PhD

Birth date: November 27, 1955. I grew up outside of Buffalo, New York (Kenmore, to be exact), attended Kadimah School (one of the first Jewish day schools in the US) and Kenmore West High School, edited the school newspaper, and was largely absorbed in playing piano and getting straight A's to please my father. Reared in conservative-leaning-towards-orthodox Judaism, my leanings today somewhere between the conservative and renewal movements. Other key aspects of my childhood include many summers at Camp Ramah in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada, several teenage trips to Israel, and my father's death in 1971.

College years were spent at the University of Rochester -- the next big city over. I majored in math and later in computer science as well. I always had an interest in things like psychology and anthropology, but I convinced myself to pursue math and computer science. I did quite well too; I won math prizes, got into decent math grad schools. But my heart wasn't really into math. I opted for computer science and went off to grad school at Stanford in 1977.

The move to California in 1977 was transformative; it took a couple of years, but I soon lost all my East-coast ways. I was a woman in the computer science department at Stanford at a time when there were very few women (I was the only woman in my class). The department was a wonderland of weirdness -- the days when computers and the people interested in them were pretty offbeat and the societal impact of computers wasn't really felt yet.

I ended up writing my thesis in concurrent program verification under my advisor Susan Owicki. The crux of my thesis was that programs/problems/reasoning could be done in terms of the "events" or actions in the program and their interrelationships, rather than in terms of state invariants -- the normal method. My advisor didn't particularly like my going off in such a weird direction, but I was funded via fellowships (first NSF, then Hertz) so I did what I wanted. That has always been my pattern -- follow my own path, not anyone else's.

I finished my thesis in the fall of 1983. I got tenure-track offers from good schools (Cornell, Yale), but I opted to stay in the Bay Area and took a job at SRI. Soon thereafter I switched from the Computer Science Lab to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab at SRI -- a radical decision based on chance, politics, and some intuition about what I was really interested in. (Notice, I was starting to return to my original inclinations towards psychology and the like...)

During my years in AI (1983--1997), I made my name in the area of planning -- essentially program synthesis -- the flip side of the my thesis area -- program verification. Initially I worked with Mike Georgeff on the first and probably still one of the best reactive planners -- PRS (now called dMARS). This work made a name for me in AI. I then proceeded along my usual ornery track, inventing a new method of multiagent planning based on reasoning about events (actions) and interrelationships rather than state pre/postconditions (note similarity to my thesis). This led to the development of the GEMPLAN planner, and then the COLLAGE planner, which was built by me and my team at NASA Ames Research Center, where I worked from 1989--1995.

What about the personal sphere? Well, in 1981, I met Steve Rubin, a Carnegie Mellon grad who has worked in lots of areas, but all related to spatial/visual computing -- image understanding (thesis under Raj Reddy), computer chip design systems, and 3-D graphics. We got married in April 1984 and have lived near Stanford ever since -- not far from where I did all my doctoral work at the old SAIL AI Lab during grad school. In 1988 we had our first son, Izaak, and in 1991, our second son, Max.

Around 1985, Steve and I embarked on an unexpected path -- we began to sing in rock and roll bands. Actually, Steve took it up with some co-workers, and I copied him out of jealousy. Don't forget, I was the real musician in the family! Besides, I had taken voice lessons for many years. After a series of bands, we ended up in different bands -- he in Severe Tire Damage (noted for its internet prankstery) and I in Not Dead Yet (formerly known as the Wizards -- a Stanford nerd band composed of myself, Dick Gabriel, Ron Goldman, and Tom Gruber). Here's a picture of me with my two sons in a band venue. After six years with with Not Dead Yet, I left the band in January 1999 and it later collapsed. We still do occasional gigs together, but today I'm studying piano composition. I have two long piano works under my belt and several liturgical compositions. I also really enjoy cantorial singing.

During all those years as a computer scientist, I always had a major interest in medicine and psychology. Over the years, this interest took a turn towards the alternative. I tried lots of things; chiropractic, network chiropractic, tai chi, qi gong, hands-on healing (e.g. Reiki), acupuncture.

Then, in 1994 we realized that our younger son Max was having developmental/behavioral/language problems. It turns out that he had mild autism, probably as a result of vaccine damage. Helping Max became my life goal. We experimented with food elimination (great gains after stopping milk), speech and language therapy, really thinking and working on family dynamics, focussing on unconditional love and intentionality. All of these things helped somewhat -- Max was making slow progress.

In January 1995, we began Max on a course of homeopathic treatment and later osteopathy as well. This was a major turning point for him, for our family, and for me. The homeopathic remedy that Max took for about 1.5 years (LM dosing, for those of you who know the field) had a major transformative effect on him. His therapists were amazed; they had never seen anything like it. Two years later, you would never suspect he had been autistic.

This experience had a major impact on me and the rest of my family. We all use homeopathy now as our primary medical system. We've seen ear infections disappear in hours, stomach flus nipped in the bud, warts drop off, tics and twitches disappear overnight. Steve and I have had some major psychological transformations. Max is now doing great -- he's an excellent student at grade level, sociable, and popular. We were greatly blessed by his healing and our discovery of homeopathy. And I was left with a new mission: to help other kids like Max, and to study, promote, and eventually practice homeopathy.

After many years on the academic treadmill and a fairly illustrious career in AI, I began the process of detaching from the world of computing. First, I founded my own little consulting and research outfit in September 1995, Renaissance Research. This move was also prodded by the downfall of the AI lab at NASA Ames -- the result of quite gory internal politics. For three years I did some consulting on the COLLAGE system with NASA Goddard. At this point, I also served (for three years) as a consulting associate professor in Stanford's Symbolic Systems program -- an interdisciplinary undergrad major that focuses on computer science, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and philosophy. But gradually I began to devote myself exclusively to the study and promotion of homeopathy.

First, in the summer of 1996, I began my studies with Misha Norland's School of Homeopathy in Devon, England. They have an excellent and rigorous correspondence program. I completed their foundation program, and I am still working on their more advanced program. I also did my coursework in anatomy and physiology. Then I pursued several years of clinical training and workshops under people like Louis Klein, Simon Taffler, and Sadhna Thakkar. I've also studied with Alize Timmerman, Jan Scholten, Jeremy Sherr, Janet Snowdon, A.U. Ramakrishnan, and Rajan Sankaran.

Next, I began working in editing and writing. For two years I co-edited the journal of the North American Society of Homeopaths -- The American Homeopath. Then I began writing. First I wrote an article about Max's amazing cure. You can find it at this web site: Max's Story. This article also appeared in the 5th issue of Homeopathy Online, on a French web site, and in print in an Australian homeopathy journal.

Then I began work on a book. In April 2003, it will be available: Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy. It includes Max's story, along with dozens of other testimonials of homeopathic cure. However, it is really an introductory text on homeopathy -- philosophy, history, scientific studies, what treatment is like, etc. You can read more about it and order it at my book web site: www.impossiblecure.com.

I also got political. A prerequisite to the spread of homeopathy is making it truly legal. I helped found (and serve as an executive board member of) the California Health Freedom Coalition. It took us two years of hard work, but in September 2002, Governor Gray Davis signed SB-577, a bill that legalizes the practice of unlicensed forms of medicine in California -- including homeopathy. Now I can practice legally -- and I plan to start doing so sometime in 2003/2004.

Other things that I'm into that I haven't yet mentioned:

-- Writing/reading in the area of consciousness studies. Actually, I have a fairly well known paper in this area that has been published in the Noetic Journal and is linked all over the internet -- Consciousness As An Active Force. Among other things, it discusses the relationship between alternative medicine like homeopathy and the power of human consciousness. It involves a view of consciousness as an active force that humans can exert and that influences how we traverse 3-D space/time.

-- I'm also a spiritually committed Jew and a member of the Jewish peace movement. I belong to the Tikkun Community, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, and I'm a member of a wonderful Palestinian/Jewish Dialogue group. I pray for peace each day, I go to the anti-war rallies, and I try to hold a vision of the day when all people can treat each other with love and respect.

-- Music of every kind and performing. Rock'n'roll keeps me young.

-- Anything to do with Star Trek (all incarnations) and Babylon 5. Yes, I am a trekkie.

-- The arts: watercolor painting and needlework like knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, and quilting.

-- Swimming -- I do about 7/8 mile 2-3 times a week. I also love canoeing and kayaking.

-- Canada and Australia: my favorite places. Especially Muskoka, Ontario.

-- Hugh Jackman -- my favorite movie star, a gorgeous man, and a super wonderful human being.

-- Analysis in general -- coming up with new theories about our world, and having long penetrating lunches/dinners, discussing life, the universe, and everything.

Homeopathy:
Homeopathy Home Page
Council for Homeopathic Certification and referrals to certified homeopaths
More referrals to recommended homeopaths
Minimum Price Books -- THE source for all books on homeopathy
Will Taylor's Homeopathy Web Site
David Little's Homeopathy Web Site
Julian Winston's Archive of interesting homeopathic articles
Devon School of Homeopathy
Lou Klein's Luminos Schools
Homeopathy Online Magazine
National Center for Homeopathy
North American Society of Homeopaths
List of Homeopathic Pharmacies
HELIOS Pharmacy
Homeopathy-Help.Net

Vaccination
Links to info about vaccination, amalgam, etc.
More immunization links

My writing:
Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy
Consciousness as an Active Force
Max's Story

Other interesting things:
California Health Freedom Coalition
Emotional Freedom Technique
Reiki Page
Bach Flower Remedies
Quantum Touch
Mercola Web Site -- excellent alternative health views and statistics; newsletter, etc.
International Campaign for Tibet
Robert Bowman, ISSS
Disclosure Project
Jackman's Landing
The School of Human Ecology -- Australia

Personal Stuff:
Severe Tire Damage
RuLabinsky Ranch

Amy Lansky, PhD
Renaissance Research
4119 Alpine Road, Suite A
Portola Valley, CA 94028
lansky AT renresearch.com

Revised February 2003