Emeritus Professor & former Dehlsen Professor in Environmental Studies
Professor Freudenburg passed away on December 28, 2010. A memorial website has been created in his honor and available at https://www.forevermissed.com/billfreudenburg . Please feel free to visit.
Dr. Freudenburg, the 2004-05 President of the Rural Sociological Society, devoted most of his career to the study of environment-society relationships. He was particularly well-known both for his work on coupled environment-society systems in general and for his work on more specific topics, including resource-dependent communities, the social impacts of environmental and technological change, and risk analysis. He held official positions with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Sociological Association, and the National Academy of Sciences, among others. He was the winner of Awards from the American Sociological Association, Rural Sociological Society, Pacific Sociological Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as being listed in numerous reference works, including Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World. His most recent publications focused on topics ranging from the social impacts of U.S. oil dependence to the polarized nature of debates over spotted owls, with a special emphasis on “disproportionality,” or the tendency for a major fraction of all environmental impacts to be associated with a surprisingly small fraction of the overall economy.