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 is also currently affiliated with the Obesity Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC) in the Division of Preventive Medicine at the UAB Heersink School of Medicine. Additionally, Dr. Cockerham 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.

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.