About Us

Professional Bio:

Dr. Williams is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech's Department of Computer Science. She is a computer science researcher and designer whose work is at the intersection of identity, culture, and computing in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI).

Her research examines digital technology use among populations with low resources due to systemic injustices, and explores tech-enabled solutions to either highlight injustices or find future alternatives (i.e., anti-racist design).

Dr. Williams has published in the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) - the premier international Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) conference . In 2020, her first-authored CHI paper on critical race theory for HCI won a Best Paper Award (awarded to only 1% of all submissions).

According to Google Citations, it has been cited over 280 times and has been viewed over 6,000 times in the ACM Library. She has been awarded over $300,000 worth of grants and fellowships, including the Microsoft Research Dissertation Fellowship, GEM Fellowship, Generation Google Scholarship (formerly Google’s Women Techmakers Scholars), and the Rackham Graduate School Merit Fellowship.

Dr. Williams has completed research internships at Adobe Research and Microsoft Research. Prior to her PhD, Dr. Williams worked in industry as a software engineer and product manager at Xerox, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the U.S. Department of State.