Bill is responsible for the genetic sequencing component of Piedmont Discovery Center’s research focused on putative old growth grassland remnants in the Piedmont of eastern North America. He is currently focused on the genus, Pycnanthemum, and in 2025 he successfully completed chloroplast genome sequences of our Pycnanthemum tenuifolium samples and they were successfully assembled and annotated – the first time that has ever happened for this genus. With the successful trial under our belts, we are excited to take a deeper dive into the genus, and begin to explore species variability and timeframes for the expansion and establishment for this grassland-endemic genus.

Bill is a graduate of Harvard and University of Chicago, with a doctorate in Biochemistry. Bill was a Senior Fellow at Health Sciences at ICF International where he worked on a wide range of issues related to environmental science and public health. Many involved the analysis of complex data sets to estimate human exposures to environmental chemicals and to evaluate potential health risks associated with these exposures. Recently, much of his time has been spent supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center or Environmental Assessment and Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics to estimate health risks associated with exposures to inorganic arsenic and lead.