Bill Purves is Professor Emeritus of Biology as well as founder and former Chair of the Department of Biology at Harvey Mudd College. His undergraduate work was at Caltech, and he received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Purves has served as Head of the Life Sciences Group at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and as Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, where he won the Harold J. Plous Award for teaching excellence. His research interests focused on the hormonal regulation of plant growth. He conducted research in that field at the University of Tübingen (Germany), UCLA, Bedford College of the University of London, Harvard, and Brookhaven National Laboratory, and in the learning sciences at Northwestern University. He elected early retirement in 1995 in order to concentrate entirely on research directed at learning and scientific education. Bill was the senior author of the first seven editions of the college textbook Life: The Science of Biology.

He was a co-founder and Scientific Director of The Mona Group LLC, which made multimedia products for science education. He has consulted on education and training for Motorola, Edvotek, and other companies.