Bill Fulton received his PhD from Princeton in 1966. After a postdoc at Brandeis, he spent 17 years at Brown, working with Bob MacPherson, Joe Harris, and Paul Baum. This was followed by 11 years at the University of Chicago and 10 years at the University of Michigan, where he has the Keeler Chair. He has had enjoyed and extended visits at IHES, IAS, Mittag-Leffler Institute (as Erlander Professor), Columbia University (as Eilenberg Visiting Professor), Genova, Aarhus, Orsay,and Oslo, as well as MSRI. He has had Sloan and Guggenheim Fellowships. He has served as editor of the Journal of the AMS and organized many conferences.

His research interests center around algebraic geometry, including several bordering subjects such as combinatorics and representation theory. He is author or coauthor of 10 books; "Intersection Theory" won the Steele Prize in 1996.

He enjoys music (learning the clarinet), kayaking with whales, and following the work of his many PhD students.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.