William Leiss, OC

Order of Canada

The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

, FRSC

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

 (born 1939) was President of the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

 from 1999-2001.

Born in Long Island, New York at the end of 1939, he grew up in rural Pennsylvania. He began his university education in New Jersey, at Fairleigh Dickinson University

Fairleigh Dickinson University

Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university founded as a junior college in 1942. It now has several campuses located in New Jersey, Canada, and the United Kingdom.-Description:...

, graduating in 1956 with a B.A. summa cum laude (major in history and minor in accounting); then in Massachusetts, with a M.A. in the History of Ideas Program at Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

 (1963); and finally in La Jolla, California, with a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

 (1969). Leiss studied with Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...

 at UCSD.

Dr. Leiss started his academic career in the Political Science Department at the University of Regina

University of Regina

The University of Regina is a public research university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the University of Saskatchewan as a junior college in 1925, and was disaffiliated...

, before moving on in 1973 to two stints with the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University

York University

York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....

 (also Political Science and the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought there), interrupted by a brief stay at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

's Department of Sociology; then in 1980 to the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...

, where he was department chair for six years and later Vice-President, Research. He was awarded the five-year, externally-funded Eco-Research Chair in Environmental Policy at the School of Policy Studies, Queen's University

Queen's University

Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...

, in 1994 and was then in the Faculty of Management at the University of Calgary

University of Calgary

The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...

 where he held a five-year research chair, the NSERC/SSHRC/Industry Chair in Risk Communication and Public Policy, funded under the granting councils' Management of Technological Change program. He is now at University of Ottawa, in the R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment as Scientist and Adjunct Professor.

In 2003, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada

Order of Canada

The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

.

Publications

• “Husserl's Crisis”. Telos 8 (Summer 1971). New York: Telos Press.
• The Domination of Nature, first published in 1972
• The Limits to Satisfaction (1976)
• Social Communication in Advertising (1986)
• C. B. Macpherson: Dilemmas of Liberalisn and Socialism, Second Edition (2009)
• Under Technology's Thumb (1990)
• Risk and Responsibility (1994)
• Mad Cows and Mother's Milk (1997)
• In the Chamber of Risks (2001).
• Hera (2006).