BIO

William Anderson
William Anderson has been a staff member at the National Academies since August 2001. He is associate executive director in the Division on Earth and Life Studies and director of the Disasters Roundtable in the National Research Council. From June 1999 to June 2001, he served as senior advisor in the Disaster Management Facility in the Infrastructure Division at the World Bank while on leave from the National Science Foundation (NSF). While at NSF, he was responsible for developing social science and multidisciplinary natural hazards research programs and providing oversight for such large-scale research activities as the NSF-funded earthquake engineering research centers and the cooperative program on wind engineering. Prior to his appointment at NSF, Anderson was associate professor to full professor of sociology at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. At Ohio State he was a field director at the Disaster Research Center where he coordinated teams conducting research on the impacts of natural and technological disasters in the U.S. and abroad.