Dr. William F. Waters received his doctoral degree (Ph.D. in Psychology) from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio in 1969. He went on to complete his internship / residency at the Brecksville Ohio Veterans' Administration Hospital in Brecksville, Ohio. Dr. Waters is board certified by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Board of Professional Psychology, and has been on staff at Ochsner full time since 2002.
Dr. Waters served as a full professor of psychology at the louisiana state university from 1979 - 2002, where he also was director of the clinical psychology doctoral training program for ten years and taught doctoral students in sleep (sleep disorder etiology and insomnia treatment), and in clinical psychology (diagnosis and treatment, and research). During his 22 years at LSU and 11 years at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, he published nationally recognized research in sleep disorders and anxiety, sleep and attention, behavioral treatment of insomnia, the psychophysiology of attention and stimulus habituation, systematic desensitization treatment, emotion and psychophysiological disorders.
Dr. Waters is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, Division 12 (clinical psychology) and of the American Psychological Association since 1991, a fellow of the American Psychological Society since 1992, a fellow of the American College of Clinical Psychology since 1994 and a fellow of the American Sleep Disorders Association since 1992. He also has served on a variety of different professionally relevant boards over the years
At Ochsner Medical Complex - Baton Rouge, Dr. Waters developed the Sleep Disorders Center (first AASM-accredited sleep disorders center in Louisiana) and subsequently another accredited SDC (which has since closed) at Ochsner Health Center - Covington. He has been enjoying his full time clinical work at Ochsner since 2002, and is still connected with LSU as full professor of psychology emeritus. While at LSU, he also spent 5 years at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center as lead researcher for their US Army grant on prevention of functional impairment during sleep deprivation.
