William J. Schwartz is a professor of neurology and associate chair for research and education in the Department of Neurology at Dell Medical School. He is also a professor of integrative biology in the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. He practices general neurology and is involved in the mentoring of trainees in basic and clinical neuroscience. Schwartz is working on the development of interdisciplinary courses at the intersection of biology and medicine for UT Austin undergraduates and the approach to patients with neurological disease for Dell Med students and residents. For nearly four decades, he has conducted NIH-funded research on biological clocks and especially on the “master” brain clock in the mammalian hypothalamus. He was elected chair of the Gordon Conference on Chronobiology (1993) and president of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (SRBR) (2004-2006). He delivered the plenary lecture of the founding congress of the Japanese Society of Chronobiology (1994), the 9th Pittendrigh/Aschoff Lecture of the SRBR (2014), and the 5th Johannes Ariëns Kappers Lecture of the European Biological Rhythms Society (2017). He is currently the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biological Rhythms. 

After completing his M.D. degree and neurology residency at the University of California, San Francisco and a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health, he served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Massachusetts before his current position. Since 2005, he has been awarded invited professorships for terms at universities in The Netherlands, France, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Japan and the United States.