Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Chair Emeritus
Research Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland
Dr. William Cockerham received his PhD. from the University of California, Berkeley and served as chairperson of UAB's Department of Sociology from 1994-2000 and 2011-2017. He is now Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Chair Emeritus at UAB and Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park. He is also affiliated with the Obesity Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC) in the Division of Preventive Medicine at the UAB Heersink School of Medicine. He led the sociology department in the initial period of its PhD program in medical sociology and later oversaw the development of the online MA in sociology and the BS in medical sociology. While at UAB, he was an Edge of Chaos Scholar, Sparkman Scholar, and recipient of the Connors Prize in the History of Ideas and the Ireland Award for Scholarly Distinction.
Additionally, Dr. Cockerham was President of the Research Committee on Health Sociology of the International Sociological Association from 2006-2010 and served on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Society and Mental Health, Social Currents, Current Sociology Monographs, Social Science Quarterly, and others.
His most recent books are Sociological Theories of Health and Illness (Routledge, 2021), Social Causes of Health and Disease, 3rd ed. (Polity, 2021), The COVID-19 Reader: The Science and What It Says About the Social (Routledge, 2021), Sociology of Mental Disorder, 11th ed. (Routledge, 2021), the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology (Wiley Blackwell 2021), and Medical Sociology, 15th ed. (Routledge, 2022). Currently, he is editor-chief of the forthcoming Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, 2nd ed.