Assistant Professor, Gender and Women's Studies | Lecturer, Social and Behavioral Sciences | Associate Research Professor | Assistant Research Social Scientist, Geography/Regional Devel | Member of the Graduate Faculty
Dr. Jill M. Williams is a feminist social scientist, qualitative researcher, and program developer focused on understanding inequitable social systems and contributing to their transformation. Dr. Williams holds an MA in Women's Studies from the University of Cincinnati and a PhD in Geography from Clark University. She is trained as a feminist political geographer and has researched contemporary US border enforcement practices for over a decade. In her research, she employs a feminist geopolitical approach to understand the material, discursive, and affective processes through which border enforcement practices play out and how they shape the lived experiences of individuals and communities. She currently serves as the Principal Investigator with Co-PI, Kate Coddington, SUNY-Albany) of a National Science Foundation funded project examining the use of public information campaigns as a tool of border governance in the US and Australia. Past research has examined the criminalization of humanitarian aid and uneven practices of migrant detention and release in southern Arizona.