Dr. William Cockerham received his PhD. from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and served as chairperson of University of Alabama at Birmingham's (UAB) 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 Minority Health & Health Equity Research Center (MHERC) 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.