William R. Chapman is Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and Professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. He was previously with the School of Environmental Design at the University of Georgia. Educated at Columbia (M.S. in Historic Preservation, 1978) and at Oxford University in England (D.Phil.in Anthropology, 1982), he specializes in architectural recording, the development of historic districts, and materials conservation. A former Fulbright scholar and American Candidate at the International Center for Conservation in Rome, and most recently a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Thailand, he has a special interest in international preservation, particularly in the Pacific and Asia.

He is the author of numerous scholarly articles, books and book chapters, technical reports, and professional publications. Among his book-length works are The Virgin Islands Sourcebook of Historic Structures (1985), and The Madison Historic Preservation Manual (1991). His articles have appeared in the Georgia Historical Quarterly, Antiquaries Journal, New Research in Museum Studies, Winterthur Portfolio, Preservation Forum, The Bulletin for the Association for Preservation Technology, CRM (Cultural Resource Management) and Historical Archaeology.

He has delivered papers before many professional organizations, and has been an invited speaker at Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and the University of Florida. A frequent consultant to state, national and international historic preservation organizations, he received national attention for his reports to the National Trust for Historic Preservation on Hurricane Hugo's damage to historic structures in the Caribbean and the Southeastern United States. In 1991, he received an award for Outstanding Achievement in Historic Preservation from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, for his work with the City of Madison, Georgia, and an Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Dr. Chapman is widely recognized as a leading authority in recording historic architecture and in policies and procedures for historic preservation at both the local and national levels. With his international expertise, he has been a study tour leader for numerous organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Smithsonian Institution. He has also led study tours on behalf of the State Department (USIA) and in 1992 presented a two-week series of USIA-sponsored lectures in Bombay and New Delhi, India. Most recently he has been involved in both conferences and conservation projects in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries and the Pacific islands, serving as a consultant to the U.S. National Park Service, UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund.