William B. Bonvillian Director, MIT Washington Office Massachusetts Institute of Technology
William B. Bonvillian, since January 2006, has been Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Washington, D.C. Office. Prior to that position, he served for seventeen years as Legislative Director and Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman. He has also taught in the area of science, technology and innovation policy.
Prior to his work on Capitol Hill, 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. His recent articles include, "Power Play - The DARPA Model and U.S. Energy Policy" in American Interest, "Meeting the New Challenge to U.S. Economic Competitiveness" and "Organizing Science and Technology for Homeland Security," both published in Issues in Science and Technology, and "Science at a Crossroads," published in Technology in Society and reprinted in the FASEB Journal. At MIT, he works to support MIT's strong and historic relations with federal R&D agencies, and its role on national science policy. His legislative efforts at Senator Lieberman's office included science and technology policies and innovation issues. He worked extensively on legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security, and more recently on Intelligence Reform and national competitiveness 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. He is a member of the Connecticut Bar, the District of Columbia Bar and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar and serves on the Board on Science Education of the National Academies of Sciences. He has lectured and given speeches before numerous audiences on science and technology issues, and has taught previously in this area at Georgetown, MIT and George Washington.