Bill Tracy

William F. Tracy (Bill) is a professor in the department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has recently been appointed interim chair of the department of Life Sciences Communication.  He received a B.S. and M.S. in plant and soil science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding from Cornell University. After a couple of brief stints in the corn seed breeding and biotech sector, he joined UW Madison in 1984 as an assistant professor to teach Agronomy 100 and breed sweet corn. He was promoted to associate professor in 1990 and served as agronomy department chair for 14 years and interim dean of the college for 14 months.

Bill taught Agronomy 100 and advised agronomy undergrads for more than 30 years. In this role he got to know many LSC undergraduate majors who were double majoring in Agronomy. He is a sweet corn breeder and studies the genetics, biochemistry and physiology of sweet corn quality and productivity.  In 2014, Bill received the Genetics and Plant Breeding Award from the National Association of Commercial Plant Breeders and in in 2017, was named the Clif Bar and Organic Valley Chair in Breeding for Organic Systems. In 2018 he was elected fellow of the Crop Science Society of America and in 2020 a Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2023 the college awarded him the Spitze Land Grant Faculty Award for Excellence.