Shana Williams is director of center operations for the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where she manages the center’s overall operations portfolio, oversees the workflow and supervision of the five-person operations team, designs and implements center-wide procedures and systems to improve operational work, and collaborates with leadership to track and meet center-wide goals.

Before joining Urban, Williams was director of operations and strategy at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), where she oversaw and incorporated functional lessons into ICRW’s day-to-day practices, processes, and structures and ensured their alignment with ICRW’s mission and values. She managed business development, designed and led the proposal development life cycle, and created detailed data analytics and strategies for restricted fundraising across ICRW’s regional offices in Kenya, India, and Uganda. She served as vice chair and a primary member of ICRW’s institutional review board for 10 years, which included reviewing protocols and data collection tools for research studies involving human subjects. Before joining ICRW, she was a municipal development facilitator for the US Peace Corps in El Salvador.

Williams has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and international finance from Texas Christian University and a master’s degree in public administration and international development from Rutgers University.