Dr. William Bridges received his MS and PhD from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in the early 80's and has received several awards throughout his career including being elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2018. In 2023 he was awarded the Class of '39 Award for Excellence, presented annually to one distinguished faculty member whose outstanding contributions for a five-year period have been judged by peers to represent the highest achievement of service to the student body, Clemson University, and the larger community.

Windsor Westbrook Sherrill, who nominated Bridges, wrote that he is renowned throughout the campus for his extraordinary dedication to research, teaching and mentorship, serving both faculty and students. Bridges has served on more than 400 graduate student advisory committees, resulting in approximately 400 co-authored publications with approximately 8,500 citations. 

His research focus is the application of generalized mixed models in Agriculture, Biology, Education, and Engineering studies.