Bill Foster

Bill Foster was 19 when he and his younger brother cofounded Electronic Theatre Controls, a business making theatre lighting equipment.¹ In a 2017 account, he recalled their basement startup and his later work programming the control system for Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade.² He lives in Naperville with his wife, Aesook, also a physicist, and has two adult children.¹

Foster earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin Madison and a Ph.D. at Harvard.³ Before Congress, he worked as a particle physicist and accelerator designer at Fermilab, participating in the team that discovered the top quark.¹ His work also included leading teams that designed scientific equipment and accelerator facilities.¹

He first represented the 14th District from 2008 to 2011, then returned to Congress representing the 11th District in 2013.¹ He serves on the Financial Services and Science, Space and Technology committees and is the ranking Democrat on the Financial Institutions subcommittee.¹ He advocates sustained federal investment in scientific research.¹ He received the 2022 Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators.⁴

His current healthcare priorities include restoring enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits and reversing Medicaid cuts.⁵ He supports greater funding for special education through the IDEA Full Funding Act.⁵ On immigration, he supports comprehensive reform with border security and a citizenship pathway conditioned on fines, back taxes and background checks.⁵ He opposes additional ICE funding without major accountability reforms.⁵