Francesca A. Williamson
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Francesca A. Williamson, PhD (she/her/FW), is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Equity at the School of Public Health and the Research Center from Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research. She is the principal investigator of the HEiRS Lab, a multidisciplinary research group that investigates how real-world health(care), learning, and research practices enable or hinder equity and justice across systems.
An interdisciplinary scholar and qualitative methodologist by training, Dr. Williamson’s research program includes empirical and methodological work on how anti-Blackness, racism, adultism, ableism, and interconnected systems of inequality mutually shape knowledge, learning, research practices, and health across multiple levels of scale. Her methodological work centers on philosophical, theoretical, and practical aspects of critical and interactional approaches to qualitative inquiry, particularly Africana/Black ways of knowing, children’s ways of knowing, and discourse and conversation analysis. Her empirical work bridges interests in equity, justice, and systems change in various health and educational contexts. She conducts empirical research in clinical, community, and educational settings, with recent projects focused on patient–provider–family interactions in pediatric care, local food and nutrition systems, learning health systems, medical education, and workforce development. Dr. Williamson is a first-generation college graduate and a TRiO alumna. Her work has received numerous awards from national and international professional associations. Through the HEiRS Lab and courses, Dr. Williamson teaches and mentors students across disciplines in qualitative methodologies and methods, health equity science, learning health systems research, and medical education research.
She is collaborating with Natalie Davis, Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl and Jane Harness on a new Center for the Learning Sciences Project, “Co-Designing Purposeful Spaces & Homeplaces.”
