Coleman was a distinguished professor in his field. His first academic tenure was at
Johns Hopkins University (1961–1971), during which he rose to the rank of full professor. and
Victorian Science (1970, with
George Basalla and Robert H. Kargon); and he wrote the textbook
Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function, and Transformation (1971). linking his research interests to American social and political theory. a term cut short by illness, and was elected to the
American Philosophical Society in 1988. In 1989, his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–Madison dedicated a memorial symposium to his memory, the William Coleman Memorial Symposium on "Epidemics and Their Social Impact." ==Death and legacy==