David R. Williams, chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will be speaking in the Rupp Arena for the CALLED Pastors Family Convention.
Dr. Williams is an internationally recognized social scientist focused on social influences on health. He has been invited to keynote scientific conferences in Europe, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, South America and across the United States. His research has enhanced our understanding of the complex ways in which socioeconomic status, race, stress, racism, health behavior and religious involvement can affect health. He is the author of more than 475 scientific papers, and he has served on the editorial board of 12 scientific journals and as a reviewer for over 75 others.
The Everyday Discrimination Scale that he developed is the most widely used measure of discrimination in health studies. He has received numerous honors and awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) in 2001, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2019. He has also received distinguished contribution awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Psychological Association, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He was ranked as one of the top 10 Most Cited Social Scientists in the world in 2005 and as the Most Cited Black Scholar in the Social Sciences in 2008. In 2014, Thomson Reuters ranked him as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds.
Along with his Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professorship in Public Health at Harvard, he is also a Professor of African and African American Studies and Sociology at Harvard University. Previously, he served 6 years on the faculty of Yale University and 14 at the University of Michigan. He holds an MPH from Loma Linda University and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Michigan.