Philip J. Williams is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University. Previously, he served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and as Director of the federally-funded Center for Latin American Studies and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida (UF). Williams received his M.Phil in Latin American Studies and D.Phil in Politics from the University of Oxford. His research has focused on issues of democratization, transitional justice, religion and politics, social movements, and transnational migration. He is author/editor of several books, including Living "Illegal": The Human Face of Unauthorized Immigration (The New Press, 2011). 

At UF, Williams led a number of interdisciplinary research and programmatic initiatives supported by over $9 million in grants and fellowships from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, Fulbright, North-South Center, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the United States Agency for International Development, the United States Department of Education, and the United States Department of State.

As Dean at Cal Poly, Williams led a number of initiatives to support equitable student success, including developing the college’s first ever summer undergraduate research/creative activity program, increasing equitable access to high impact learning experiences, and launching a global engagement grants programs to provide more international educational opportunities for first generation and underrepresented students.