William F. Tate

William F. Tate IV serves as the president of Louisiana State University. He holds faculty appointments in sociology (primary), psychiatry and behavioral medicine (clinical), epidemiology (secondary), and population and public health (secondary) at the Baton Rouge campus, LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, and Pennington Biomedical Research Center respectively.

Tate has served as Executive Vice President for Academic Affair and Provost, while holding the Education Foundation Distinguished University Professorship in sociology at the University of South Carolina. Prior to that, he served as the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences and dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Tate's research focuses on the design of epidemiological and geospatial models to explain the social determinants of educational attainment, health, and developmental outcomes. He is particularly interested mathematics and science performance and served as a member of Mathematical Sciences Education Board at the National Research Council. His research projects include understanding the distal and social factors that predict STEM undergraduate and doctoral degree attainment defined broadly to include highly quantitative social sciences disciplines (e.g., economics). His co-edited book, Beyond Stock Stories and Folktales: African Americans’ Paths to STEM Fields, captures the direction of this research program. He served as a member of For the Sake of All research team, a multi-disciplinary group that studied the health, development, and well-being of residents in the St. Louis region. His edited book project, Research on Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities: Toward Civic Responsibility, reflects his interest in community psychology and the geography of opportunity in metropolitan America.

Tate is a fellow and past president of the American Educational Research Association. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education.