William Leiss

Background

Born in Long Island, New York at the end of 1939, he grew up in rural Pennsylvania.

Education

In the History of Ideas Program at Brandeis University (1963). And finally in Louisiana Jolla, California, with a Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego (1969). Leiss studied with Herbert Marcuse at University of California, San Diego.

Career

He began his university education in New Jersey, at Fairleigh Dickinson University, graduating in 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude (major in history and minor in accounting). Then in Massachusetts, with a Master of Arts Doctor Leiss started his academic career in the Political Science Department at the University of Regina, before moving on in 1973 to two stints with the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University (also Political Science and the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought there), interrupted by a brief stay at the University of Toronto"s Department of Sociology. Then in 1980 to the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, 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, in 1994 and was then in the Faculty of Management at the University of Calgary where he held a five-year research chair, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council/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. His work on risk communication in science and policy has informed recent analysis on biotechnology governance in Canada by political scientists G. Bruce Doern and Michael J. Prince.

Achievements

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

Works

More photos

• book

  • Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption in the Mediated Marketplace

    ( Now available in a significantly updated third edition ...)

  • In the Chamber of Risks: Understanding Risk Controversies

    ( The essential problem is the failure to recognize that ...)

  • The Limits to Satisfaction: An Essay on the Problem of Needs and Commodities

    ( Consumerism and capitalist and socialist industry have ...)

  • Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products and Images of Well-Being - 2nd Edition

    (Social Communication in Advertising : Persons, Products a...)

  • The Limits to Satisfaction: An Essay on the Problems of Needs and Commodities (Open Forum) by William Leiss (1978-01-01)

    (Will be shipped from US. Brand new copy.)

  • Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption in the Mediated Marketplace by William Leiss (2005-09-28)
  • Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products and Images of Well-Being by William Leiss (1990-07-27)
  • Risk and Responsibility by William Leiss (1994-06-06)
  • By William Leiss - In the Chamber of Risks: Understanding Risk Controversies
  • (The Limits to Satisfaction: An Essay on the Problems of Needs and Commodities * * ) Author: William Leiss Jan-1978

Interests

• Environment, science and society, risk communication.