William B. Bonvillian, since January 2006, has been Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Washington, D.C. Office. At MIT, he works to support MIT’s strong and historic relations with federal R&D agencies, and its role on national science policy. Prior to that position, he served for seventeen years as a senior policy advisor in the U.S. Senate. His legislative efforts included science and technology policies and innovation issues. He worked extensively on legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security, on Intelligence Reform, on defense and life science R&D, and on national competitiveness and innovation legislation. He has lectured and given speeches before numerous organizations on science, technology and innovation policy questions.
He is on the adjunct faculty at Georgetown, teaching a course in innovation policy, and at Johns Hopkins’ SAIS, teaching a course on energy technology policy. He has also taught courses at MIT and George Washington. He serves on the Board on Science Education of the National Academies of Sciences, and has served on the Academies’ Committees on “Learning Science: Computer Games, Simulations and Education,” on “Modernizing the Infrastructure of the NSF’s Federal Funds (R&D) Survey” and on “Exploring the Intersection of Science Education and the Development off 21st Century Skills.” He also serves on the Board of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and on the Advisory Council of the Mystic Seaport Museum. He was the recipient of the IEEE Distinguished Public Service Award in 2007.
Prior to his work on the Senate, he was a partner at a large national law firm. Early in his career, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director of Congressional Affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation, working on major transportation deregulation legislation. He received a B.A. from Columbia University with honors, an M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School in religion; and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he also served on the Board of Editors of the Columbia Law Review. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to a Federal Judge in New York.
Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution, MIT Press, 2009 (with Charles Weiss).
“A New Strategy for Energy Innovation” (with J.Alic, D. Sarewitz, and C.Weiss) in Nature (July 15, 2010).
“The Connected Science Model for Innovation” National Academy book 21st Century Innovation Systems for the U.S. and Japan (May 2009).
