Paul D. Williams is a professor of International Affairs and Associate Director of the M.A. Security Policy Studies program. 

Between 2012 and 2018, Dr. Williams was a Non-Resident Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute in New York. During 2014-15, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and during 2015-17 he was a Global Fellow associated with the Center's Africa Program. From 2011 to 2014, Dr. Williams worked as a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He previously taught at the Universities of Aberystwyth, Birmingham, and Warwick in the United Kingdom and has been a Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University and the University of Queensland, Australia.

Dr. Williams is also managing the Providing for Peacekeeping Project, an independent research project which analyzes how to develop more effective United Nations peacekeeping operations.