Lauren Williams
International Science and Engineering Fair – 1996
About Lauren Williams
Lauren Williams competed in ISEF in 1996 and went on to earn degrees in mathematics from Harvard University, Cambridge University and MIT. Williams won several prestigious fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Mathematics Society Fellowship and the Association for Women in Mathematics-Microsoft Research Prize. In 2018, she became the second-ever tenured female math professor at Harvard and currently holds the position of the Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics. In 2025 Williams was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow for her work “uncovering transformative connections between algebraic combinatorics and problems in other areas of math and physics.”
Williams discusses her research into algebraic combinatorics and her passion for mathematics in a biography by the MacArthur Foundation.
As the second-ever tenured female math professor at Harvard, Williams is a trailblazer in algebraic combinatorics, serving as a role model for the next generation of women in STEM.
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