Florence Williams has been officially promoted to Associate Professor as of July 2026. She has been with the University of Iowa since 2019. Florence received the EHS Excellence in Safety Award in 2020 and has been an executive committee member of BORAM (Boron in the Americas) since 2022, a member of the Center for Biocatalysis & Bioprocessing since 2020 as well as the Iowa Neuroscience Institute since 2019.

Professor Williams has a strong and sustained record of innovation and leadership in teaching. She restructures and designs new coursesbased on evidence-based teaching strategies and student feedback. Florence has worked closely with the Office of Teaching, Learning and Technology (OTLT)and has also participated in the Hawkeye Introductory Courses (HIC) program, including its summer workshop, as well as in beta testing data analytics for instructors, in TA training programs, and in the implementation of Learning Assistants into her courses.

Florence’s lab research is highly interdisciplinary, involving organic synthesis, materials analysis, and cell biology inquiry with in-house cell culture. Her group’s work can be classified into three general domains: Fundamental investigation and development of boron-mediated chemistry, application of new boron chemistry to tackle sustainability and environmental challenges, and the study of neurotrophic small molecule mechanism of action to tackle neurogenerative disease and related CNS disorders.

To learn more about Florence, her group and their current research projects, visit: https://www.williamsresearchlab.com/