Philip Williams

Dean | College of Liberal Arts

Areas of Expertise

Immigration

Contemporary Latin American Politics

Contact Information

805.756.2706

Email

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Biography

Philip Williams, dean of Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts since August 2019, previously served as director of the Center for Latin American Studies and professor of political science at the University of Florida. Williams was also co-partnership director for the Colombia-U.S. Human Rights Law School Program and co-directed the Program for Immigration, Religion, and Social Change (PIRSC). He is co-author of “Living ‘Illegal’: The Human Face of Unauthorized Immigration,” “Militarization and Demilitarization in El Salvador's Transition to Democracy,” “The Catholic Church and Politics in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.” Williams earned a number of prestigious fellowships and grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, Fulbright, National Science Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, United States Agency for International Development, United States Department of Education, United States Institute of Peace, and United States Department of State.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Oxford, Politics
• MPhil, University of Oxford, Latin American Studies

Research Interests

• Transnational migration
• Human rights
• Contemporary politics of Latin America