Culberson earned his bachelor's degree at the
University of Cincinnati, where he was influenced by
E. Lucy Braun; he subsequently attended the
University of Paris and the
University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1955, Culberson joined the botany department at
Duke University; he subsequently managed Duke's acquisition of the lichen-centric herbaria of
Julien Harmand and
Johan Havaas. He served as the
Hugo L. Blomquist Professor. In 2010, the lichen collection was officially named the William Louis & Chicita F. Culberson Lichen Herbarium & Library. In the mid-1970s he hosted
Ingvar Kärnefelt at Duke; Kärnefelt studied the Culbersons' collections of
Cetraria and later published a widely reproduced photograph he took of William and Chicita Culberson seated at their garden table. He served as president of the
Botanical Society of America and the
American Bryological and Lichenological Society and as director of the
Sarah P. Duke Gardens. He was the first editor-in-chief of the journal
Systematic Botany. In 1992, he became one of the first modern recipients of the
Acharius Medal. In 2000,
Theodore Esslinger erected
Culbersonia, which is a fungal
genus in the family
Caliciaceae and named in Bill Culberson and Chicita F. Culberson's honour, his "longtime friends and mentors". ==Personal life==