Dr. E. William Colglazier is Editor-in-Chief of Science & Diplomacy and Senior Scholar in the Center for Science Diplomacy at the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS). He works there to advance knowledge and practice on science policy and science diplomacy and to support international collaboration and cooperation in science and technology. He served as the fourth Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State from 2011 to 2014. In this non-political position of fixed term, his role was to provide scientific and technical expertise and advice in support of the development and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. From 1994 to 2011, he served as Executive Officer of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and National Research Council (NRC) where he helped to oversee the studies that provide independent, objective scientific advice on public policy issues. From January 2016 to January 2018 he co-chaired the 10-Member Group appointed by the U.N. Secretary General to advise on science, technology, and innovation for achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.
He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1971, and prior to 1994 worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and the University of Tennessee. While at Harvard, he also served as Associate Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Humanism of the Aspen Institute. As Professor of Physics at the University of Tennessee, he directed several research centers dealing with environmental, energy, nuclear, and waste management issues and worked with scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Oak Ridge Associated Universities. In 1976-77, he was an AAAS Congressional Science Fellow working for Congressman George Brown. He is past chair of the Forum on Physics and Society of the American Physical Society (APS) and Fellow of the AAAS and APS. In 2015 he received the Joseph A. Burton Forum Award of the APS that recognizes “outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving the interface of physics and society” and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, from the Japanese government for “contributing to science and technology exchange and mutual understanding between Japan and the United States.”
He is distinguished Visiting Fellow at International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna, Austria; Board Member of CRDF Global; Board Member of the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Board Member of the External Advisory Committee for the Office of Research and Engagement at the University of Tennessee; Member of the Emerging Technology and Research Advisory Committee for the Department of Commerce; and Member of the Committee on International Scientific Affairs of the American Physical Society. At the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, he is a member of the Innovation Policy Forum, the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability, the U.S. National Member Organization for IIASA, and the U.S. Liaison Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.