Born Jerker Johan Olof Andersson in Vallentuna, Sweden, in 1929, Andersson was likely born deaf, although his parents did not discover his deafness until age three. He attended an oral preschool and then the Manilla School for the Deaf in Stockholm, graduating in 1945. He worked as a dental technician while taking correspondence courses, and was an active member and leader in the Swedish deaf clubs and community.

Andersson left Sweden to attend Gallaudet College in 1955, and graduated in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. He also became a naturalized US citizen in the same year, formally changing his first name to Yerker. He went on to take a master’s degree in rehabilitation at Columbia University in 1962 and worked as a guidance counselor at the New York School for the Deaf in White Plains. In 1964, he was recruited to Gallaudet’s sociology department, and taught at Gallaudet for over 30 years, until his retirement in 1996. He served as the chair of the sociology department from 1974 to 1980, and in 1981 earned his Ph.D. degree in sociology at the University of Maryland in College Park.

In 1991, Dr. Harvey Corson, then provost of Gallaudet, founded a task force to examine the possibility of creating a department of deaf studies and American Sign Language. Dr. Andersson was co-chair of the task force. When the Department of Deaf Studies was created, Dr. Andersson worked as its coordinator and then as its first chair from 1993 through 1996.

Dr. Andersson was also an active member of the World Federation of the Deaf from 1975 onward, including serving two terms as vice president (1975-1983) and three terms as president (1983-1992). He also consulted extensively for the United Nations on deafness and disability issues. While some biographies of Dr. Andersson state that he was the first deaf person to address the United Nations General Assembly, this is a persistent misconception. While Dr. Andersson did deliver a lecture at the UN in 1992, it was at an unofficial meeting. The first deaf person to formally address the General Assembly was Dr. Robert Davila at the close of the UN Decade of Disabled Persons in 1992

Dr. Andersson remained active after retirement. President Bill Clinton selected him to serve on the National Council of Disability from 1996 through 1998, and he continued to work with the United Nations on disability issues through the 1990s and 2000s. He received an honorary doctorate from Gallaudet in 1998, and was named honorary president of the WFD in 2011. He passed away in 2016.