David R. Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Williams is the Norman Professor of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of African American Studies and of Sociology at Harvard University.  Prior to his arrival at Harvard, he was on the faculty at the University of Michigan and at Yale. He is centrally interested in social influences on health and his research expertise includes the trends and determinants of socioeconomic and racial differences in health. He has given special attention to the multiple ways in which racism can affect health. He is the author of more than 130 scholarly papers in scientific journals and edited collections and his research has appeared in leading journals in sociology, psychology, medicine, public health and epidemiology. He has served as a member of the editorial board of 8 scientific journals and as a reviewer for more than 50 others. According to ISI Essential Science Indicators, he was one of the Top 10 Most Cited Researchers in the Social Sciences during the last decade.  In 1995, he received an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 2001, he was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2004, he received one of the inaugural Decade of Behavior Research Awards.  Between 1992 and 1996, he served on the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics. He also chaired its subcommittee on Minority and Other Special Populations. He has served on six panels for the Institute of Medicine/ National Academy of Sciences, including the committee that prepared the Unequal Treatment report.