William Kretzschmar, Jr. (PhD, English, University of Chicago, 1980) is a Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Georgia. His major publications include the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (with Clive Upton and Rafal Konopka; Oxford U Press, 2001); Introduction to Quantitative Analysis of Linguistic Survey Data (with Edgar Schneider, Sage Publications, 1996); Handbook of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (with Virginia McDavid, Theodore Lerud, and Ellen Johnson; U Chicago Press, 1994). The primary outlet for his Linguistic Atlas research is the Linguistic Atlas web site. Current work on the Atlas pursues three primary targets: 1) creation of text-encoding and presentation format for Atlas interviews which will allow for linked text, sound, maps, and analytical information for a wide range of users; 2) advanced methods of quantitative analysis, including technical geography; and 3) creation of new field work methods which will support research in speech sciences and NLP as well as linguistic geography and sociolinguistics. These interests branched naturally into corpus linguistics, where he is directing corpus and text encoding activities for a large National Cancer Institute grant to study tobacco documents, and text analysis, as shown by his special issue of Language and Literature (vol. 10.2, 2001) on literary dialect analysis with computer assistance. He served as editor of Journal of English Linguistics for 15 years. He now serves as editor for three Linguistic Atlas projects (LAMSAS, LANCS, LAWS) and a board member for several others; as an executive board member for the international Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Consortium; and as an advisory board member or consultant for various professional journals and dictionaries, including preparation of American pronunciations for the new online Oxford English Dictionary. He has performed consulting work over the years for forensic, industrial, and academic clients.