Prof. Williams Joins BU Initiative on Cities’ 2025 Public Impact Scholars Cohort
Dr. Darien Alexander Williams, assistant professor of macro practice at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), was selected to join 20 other cutting-edge BU researchers as the 2025 cohort of BU Initiative on Cities’ Public Impact Scholars program.
Hailing from six colleges and 13 departments across the university, Williams and his cohort will participate in programming that builds the skills and knowledge necessary to translate their research into critical policy work with consequential societal impact.
The cohort members were selected for their commitment to advancing research, policy, and practice in the areas targeted by the Initiative’s Urban-H Research Agenda: housing, heat, and health. Prof. Williams works in all three areas, examining environmental and climate justice while engaging with Black and Muslim urban planning history, hurricane disaster recovery, climate change, and community organizing. He has investigated the intersection of climate disaster, urban planning, and incarceration along the Gulf Coast; participated in long-term planning in historically Black towns in Eastern North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew; and led community organizing work informed by Black Muslim city-building in the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston.
As a member of the Public Impact Scholars 2025 cohort, Prof. Williams will meet with policymakers and practitioners working on issues related to the Urban-H research areas (housing, heat, and health) and engage in group work with the other scholars in his cohort.
Prof. Williams joined BUSSW’s Macro Social Work Practice Department in 2023 after earning a doctorate in urban planning from MIT. He is a Crossroads Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Culture, Society, and Religion and a contributor to the recently published book Mapping Malcolm. He was featured in a 2024 profile by The Brink that highlighted his aptitude for bridging urban history, climate change, and community organizing with racial and environmental justice.