William Boone Bonvillian

William B. Bonvillian is a Lecturer at MIT, and Senior Director for Special Projects at MIT’s Office of Digital Learning, leading research projects on workforce education. From 2006 until 2017, he was director of MIT’s Washington Office, supporting MIT’s longstanding role in science policy at the national level. He served as an advisor to MIT’s major cross-campus policy initiatives on advanced manufacturing, energy technology, life science convergence and online education. He was an MIT representative to the President’s industry-university Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) which formed U.S. manufacturing policies in the 2011-2016 period.

He teaches courses on innovation systems and science and technology policy at MIT in the and Science Technology and Society and Political Science Departments. He is co-author of five books on technology and workforce policy: Workforce Education – A New Roadmap (MIT Press 2021),The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies (Open Book Publishers 2020), Advanced Manufacturing – The New American Innovation Policies (MIT Press 2018), Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors (Oxford University Press 2015) and Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution (MIT Press 2009).

Previously, he worked for over 15 years on science and innovation issues as a senior advisor in the U.S. Senate, and earlier was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Transportation. He serves on the National Academies of Sciences Board on Materials and Manufacturing and its standing committee for its Innovation Policy Forum and has served on eight other NAS committees. He chaired the Committee on Science and Engineering Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for from 2017-2021 and serves on the board of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. He is a member of the Polaris Council advising the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on science policy. He was named a AAAS Fellow in 2011, was awarded IEEE’s public service award in 2007, and has written and spoken extensively about science, technology and innovation policy issues.