Dr. William Cockerham received his PhD. from the University of California, Berkeley, and is now Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Chair Emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland in College Park. He was President of the Research Committee on Health Sociology of the International Sociological Association from 2006-2010 and has served in various editorial positions on 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. He is the 2026 recipient of the Reeder Award for distinguished contributions to the field of medical sociology from the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association.
His most recent books include The Sociology of Mental Disorder, 12th ed. (Routledge, 2024); Medical Sociology, 16th ed. (Routledge, 2025); Medical Sociology on the Move, Revised Edition, including New Directions in Theory, 2nd edition (Springer Nature, 2025); and Social Causes of Health and Disease, 4th ed. (Polity, 2026). He is also the editor-in-chief of the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, 2nd ed. (Wiley Blackwell, 2026). His newest book is The Sociology of Pandemics, which will be published by Polity in the UK in February 2027 and in the US in April 2027.
