David L. Sills

David L. Sills (born August 24, 1920, New York, New York, U.S.—died July 20, 2015, North Branford, Connecticut) was an American sociologist known for his studies of organizational goals in voluntary associations.

Sills received a Ph.D. from Columbia University (1956). He served as a research analyst in the public opinion and sociological research division during the Allied occupation of Japan (1947–50). He headed the United Nations Technical Assistance Organization in Bombay, the demographic division of the New York City Population Council, and the Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research. Employed by the publishing firm of Crowell Collier & Macmillan (1962–67), Sills was the editor of the 17-volume International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968, with a later supplement). He served as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and as a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Sills also served as executive associate for the Social Science Research Council, an international organization promoting social-science research and education, from 1973 until 1988, when he retired with emeritus status. In 1989 he received the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology. Sills is the author of Accident at Three-Mile Island: The Human Dimensions (1981), with C.P. Wolf.