Williams was Dean of the College of Engineering at The Ohio State University from 2011-2021 where he was responsible for 1000 faculty and staff educating 10,000 students via a $310M budget. Williams represented OSU on the Business Higher Education Forum and the Council on Competitiveness, where he is a Senior Fellow. He also served on the board of One Columbus and was chair of the board of the Transportation Research Center, driving central Ohio’s economic development and regional growth strategy.
Williams was President of the University of Alabama in Huntsville from 2007 to 2011. There he served on the boards of the Tennessee Valley Corridor, the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce and the Alabama Business Council, partnering with the US Army at Redstone Arsenal and NASA Marshall to build the university’s research and enable its entry into the Carnegie Tier 1 (very high) research category.
Williams was VP Research at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA from 2000-2007 where he was on the boards of the NE PA Ben Franklin Technology Partnership and the Central PA Life Sciences Greenhouse, investing state funds in early-stage technology and life-science companies. Williams holds B.A., M.A., Ph.D., and Sc.D. degrees from The University of Cambridge. He is a (co-) author and editor of 13 textbooks and conference proceedings and (co-) author of 450 publications on electron microscopy studies of metals and alloys. He is a fellow of nine national/international societies for materials, electron microscopy, aerospace and aeronautics.
