Heather A. Williams

Heather Andrea Williams holds the Geraldine R. Segal Professorship in American Social Thought and is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on 19th-century African American history, slavery, and Jamaican migrations. She received her B.A. and J.D. from Harvard University and Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University.

Williams has authored multiple books including Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (2005) and Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery (2012). She has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.