William Qualls is Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining the University of Illinois, he was a tenured associate professor of marketing at MIT-Sloan School of Management from 1989-1998 and an associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan from 1980-1989. In addition to these full-time appointments, he has held numerous visiting professorships at places such as the Helsinki School of Economics, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Auckland University in New Zealand, Sogang University, Hunan University and the Universidad Gabriela Mistral in Chile.

In addition to having an impact on students all over the world, he has published in such journals as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Organization Science, Journal of Consumer Research,Journal of Product and Innovation Management, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, and Journal of Business Research. Although his primary area of research will always be organizational decision behavior; his current research examines issues in new product development, innovation, and technology management.

He has served, or currently serves, on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Advertising, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, and Academy of Marketing and Science Review.

Awarded numerous honors, most recently he was elected to the Ph.D. Project Hall of Fame and named as Honorary Professor and Distinguished Foreign Scholar Expert at Hunan University in China.

Wanting to make sure his research is of value to the business world, he has consulted with firms such as KPMG-Peat Marwick, IBM, BellSouth, General Motors, Texas Instruments, Becton-Dickinson, and numerous others.

He teaches courses in business marketing, marketing strategy, and new product development at the undergraduate, graduate, executive program, and Ph.D. levels.

He has been an active contributor in numerous capacities with the National Black MBA Association, which has recognized his contributions to the African-American community with an award named in his honor. In addition to his work with the NBMBAA, he has worked with colleagues at KPMG Ph.D.-Project to increase the flow of doctoral students of color into the college classroom by helping to recruit and mentor doctoral students interested in marketing.

The most important of his accomplishments is his marriage to Pam, his wife of over 40 years, and his two children, Roderick and Kaleena.