Michael D. Williams

Michael Duryea Williams (born 1957) is an American physicist, professor at Clark Atlanta University, and current president of the AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing (formerly American Vacuum Society). He is the first African American president of AVS.

Early life and education Williams was born in Dothan, Alabama, and attended Dothan High School.

Williams attended Morehouse College and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, for his undergraduate studies. He received dual bachelor's degrees in 1979, with a B.S. in physics from Morehouse College and a B.S. in nuclear engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. While at Morehouse College, Williams received the Max C. Fleishman scholarship and was a member of the Society of Physics Students and the Atlanta University Center photography club. His thesis at Stanford was titled "The Effect of Chemical Reactivity and Charge Transfer on Gallium-Arsenide (110) Schottky Barrier Formation." His doctoral advisor was William E. Spicer and he received his PhD in 1987.

In 2002, Williams became chair of the Committee on Minorities of the American Physical Society. The COM bestows the annual Edward A. Bouchet Award, and Williams also organized a session titled "The New Face of Physics," which included discussions on the demographics of minorities in physics.

Williams joined the faculty at Clark Atlanta University in 1994, where he teaches currently. He is professor and chair of the physics department and director of the Center for Excellence in Materials Physics (CEMP) at Clark Atlanta University. He is also a member of Clark Atlanta's Faculty Research Council.

Williams has been a part of numerous professional organizations throughout his career, including AVS and the American Physical Society. He is also a member of Sigma Pi Sigma, Beta Kappa Chi, and Sigma Xi honor societies, and served on the National Academy of Sciences’ Board of Army Science and Technology study committee for a review of directed energy technology.

Selected publications

"Growth and Characterization of III-V Semiconductors for Device Applications." (2000)