Professor Emily Williams

Emily Williams is the Faculty’s Vice Dean (People and Culture) and Professor of Diversity, Development and Inclusion.

Emily completed her PhD within UCL’s Department of Epidemiology & Public Health in 2007, exploring psychosocial risk factors for the development of coronary heart disease (CHD) in UK South Asian people. This work was extended with an MRC-ESRC fellowship exploring ethnic inequalities in CHD and a Diabetes UK travelling fellowship examining ethnic and social inequalities in type 2 diabetes, improving our understanding of the role of psychosocial risk factors in the development of diabetes in minority and disadvantaged populations. This involved a collaboration between Imperial College London (National Heart and Lung Institute) and Monash University and the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, where Emily worked from 2010-2012.

More recently, Emily’s research has examined ethnic inequalities in functional ageing and inequalities in healthcare access (INTERPRET X). In addition, she is passionate about addressing educational inequalities in higher education and has led the development and implementation of the Melting the Snowy White Peaks and Surrey Black Scholars programmes, aimed at improving representation, experience and outcomes for Black, Asian and minority ethnic students.

Emily has worked on a range of different studies from nationally-representative observational, longitudinal studies to randomised controlled trials for the prevention of long-term conditions (in low and middle income countries) and improved disease self-management. Emily has international collaborations with the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney, and the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute, Kerala.

Before joining King’s, Emily was Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Surrey. As Vice Dean (People and Culture), she leads the Faculty’s People and Culture agenda.