Brittany “Brit” M. Williams, Ph.D., is a speaker, writer, facilitator, and educator. Currently an Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration at the University of Vermont, Williams is originally from Southwest Atlanta, Georgia. She obtained her Ph.D. in Counseling and Human Development with a focus on College Student Affairs Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research from the University of Georgia. She holds her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, and Teachers College-Columbia University in New York City, respectively. She is a proud product of Atlanta Public Schools. Williams is currently working on an NIH grant serving New American immigrant girls in Burlington, VT, and a Spencer racial equity grant exploring citational politics in education.

Williams’ research broadly examines issues of (in)equity within three major areas: (1) social class disparities and their impact on higher education access and completion; (2) career development, workplace retention, and supervision concerns; and (3) the nexus of education and health, with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS in college contexts. She broaches these areas of inquiry using critical, identity-conscious approaches, most commonly grounding her work in the experiences of first-generation college students, Black women and girls, and low-income students. Williams studies these issues across the PK-20+ educational spectrums to disrupt the current divide between secondary and post-secondary scholarship. She also frequently presents and consults on citational (in)equity, diversity and inclusion, epistemic (in)justice, and engaging academic and professional publishing. 

As an interdisciplinary scholar, her funded scholarship totals more than $2M, and Williams is committed to both education and public health lines of scholarly inquiry. In 2021, Williams co-edited a Special Issue of the highly coveted New Directions in Student Services series entitled Supervision in Student Affairs: Approaches and Tensions in Today’s Workplaces to help reduce growing attrition in the student affairs profession. She also served on the ACPA’s Task Force on 21st Century Employment to help more broadly nationalize strategies to improve retention in the field. From 2022 to 2024, Williams held the highly prestigious National Academy of Education (NAEd)/ Spencer postdoctoral fellowship for her research on Black college women and HIV/AIDS. Some of her recent published manuscripts include (1) “‘It’s Just My Face:’ Workplace policing of Black Professional Women in Higher Education” in the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education; (2) Be yourself, but be strategically you:” Advice for and from Black women practitioners in the Journal of College Student Development; and, (3) The Danger of a Single Story: A Case for (Re)Centering Black Women and HIV in Higher Education in New Directions for Higher Education.

As a dedicated teacher, mentor, and advocate, Williams has received numerous awards for her pedagogical prowess, research commitments, and student support. She is honored to be a 2025 Diverse: Issues in Higher Education Emerging Scholar, 2024 ACPA Emerging Scholar, and 2024 awardee for the NASPA Outstanding Contribution to Literature and/or Research Award, NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (Region I). In addition to national recognition, the University of Georgia Mary Francis Early College of Education recognized Williams with the 2025 Early Career Researcher Award and the University of Vermont College of Education and Social Services (CESS) awarded her the 2023 Joseph A. Abruscato Award for Excellence in Research & Scholarship.

An avid community builder, believer in translating theory to practice, and public scholar, Williams currently serves as a Black Women’s Health Imperative consultant for #IAmHIVPossible. Previously, she held the inaugural Writer-in-Residence role with Teach for America and co-founded two digital counter-communities for Black women within and beyond college and university environments: #CiteASista and #SisterPhD. Cite A Sista offered a groupme, online, and in person community for Black women to support, encourage, and uplift one another. The movement often offered space for Black women to discuss difficult or otherwise unsavory for dinner table conversations with a long-term goal of destigmatizing Black women’s issues. SisterPhD was a group designed to facilitate and encourage sisterhood and support as a graduate school retention strategy. The latter’s model has been replicated at institutions across the country and across graduate programs as master’s and doctoral students alike have sought to recreate such communal dynamics.

Williams’ scholarship, as well as her personal and professional advocacy, have been featured in and by the White House Initiative on HBCUs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Public Radio (NPR), the National Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI), One Day Studio (ODS), the National Minority Aids Council (NMAC) and in a host of academic journals. She is on the web under @DrBritWilliams on most social media sites.