In June 2015, Ernest J. Wilson III, Ph.D., was elected to serve on The California Wellness Foundation’s Board of Directors. Wilson, a professor of communications and political science, founded and directs USC Annenberg’s Third Space Thinking. He is a faculty fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and an advisory professor to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. From 2007 to 2017, Wilson served as dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC).
Previously, Wilson was the director of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management for the University of Maryland, College Park and held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as director of international programs and resources on the National Security Council at the White House from 1993 to 1994; director of the Policy and Planning Unit for the U.S. Information Agency in 1994; deputy director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission from 1994 to 1995; and as an advisor for President Barack Obama’s transition team.
Wilson is an accomplished author, and his most recent book is Governing Global Electronic Networks. He also cofounded and coedited the MIT Press series The Information Revolution and Global Politics and the journal Information Technologies and International Development. Wilson is also the recipient of numerous research fellowships and awards, including the Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Communication section of the International Studies Association and an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations.
He is a board member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and the National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications board and serves on the editorial advisory board for Demand Media. Wilson is a member of the Carnegie-Knight Commission on the Future of Journalism Education and The National Academies Board on Research Data and Information. He also served as board chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and master’s degree and a doctorate in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.