Bill Flounders was born in Deleware County, PA. He received the B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in 1985 and the Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. Bill completed a majority of his graduate research in the U.C. Berkeley Microfabrication Laboratory. His dissertation focused upon fabrication of exposed gate field effect transistors for sensor applications and in-situ monitoring of plasma induced radiation damage to gate insulators.

Bill completed post-doctoral research in immunology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Western Regional Research Center in Albany, CA. His research involved immobilization, stabilization and patterning of proteins for biosensor development. From 1996 to 2001, Bill was a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, CA and worked in the Chemical and Radiation Detection Laboratory. His research was supported by the DOE Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering (NN20) and focused upon sensors for detection of chemical and biological warfare agents. Bill was responsible for integration of multiple biological receptors with a single microelectronic transduction platform and adaptation of microelectronic fabrication tools to biochemical processing to enable wafer scale biosensor fabrication.

Bill lives in Berkeley with his two children. He is active in the Berkeley Public Schools Excellence Project (BSEP) and enjoys teaching and sailing at The Presidio Yacht Club.