William Fisher

Dr. William Fisher joined AUP as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs on August 1, 2018.

Dr. Fisher served as the Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts – a small, liberal arts-based research university not unlike AUP in size and ambition – Dr. Fisher will usher in a new era at AUP as our Provost. In this role, Dr. Fisher will be the senior academic planning and budget officer at AUP, charged with creating with his colleagues a new academic vision for the University. This renewal of the curriculum will include general education, majors and minors, programs, research centers and graduate programs, and will realign each with the needs and aspirations of the global explorers who are our students.

While at Clark University, Dr. Fisher also served as Professor of International Development and Social Change in the interdisciplinary department he was specifically brought from Harvard to create. Today it is Clark’s second biggest department and includes a research center and a graduate program.

From 1992 to 2000, Dr. Fisher taught in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, where he was Director of Graduate Studies in Anthropology and a Dillon Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He also taught at Princeton University and Columbia. At Columbia, he served as Assistant Director of the University’s Center for South Asian Studies and directed the Economic and Political Development specialization at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). His research focuses on the social and environmental impact of large dams, forced displacement, transnational advocacy, competition over natural resources and non-governmental organizations. His research and work for agencies – such as CARE, USAID and the UNDP – has taken him around the world.

Dr. Fisher is a graduate of Bucknell University and holds Master’s degrees in Anthropology and International Affairs from Columbia University and a Doctorate from Columbia University. He is a specialist in the language and culture of Nepal, where he has done extensive fieldwork and research.