Dr. Heather Williams is the director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She is also an associate fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Before joining CSIS she was a visiting fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom and a Stanton nuclear security fellow in the Security Studies Program at MIT. Until 2022, she was a senior lecturer (associate professor) in defense studies at King’s College London and taught on arms control, deterrence, and disarmament. From 2018 to 2019, Dr. Williams served as a specialist adviser to the House of Lords International Relations Committee inquiry into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and disarmament, and until 2015 she was a research fellow at Chatham House. She previously worked in the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses, where she remains an adjunct research staff member.

Dr. Williams has a PhD in war studies from King’s College London, an MA in security policy studies from the George Washington University, and a BA in international relations and Russian studies from Boston University.