Dr. Lovoria B. Williams is a tenured full professor at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing and Graduate Studies. She is the Director of the Community Health Advocacy iNterventions Generating Equity (CHANGE) Team and the Associate Director of Career Advancement and Leadership  at the NCI-designated Markey Cancer Center (MCC) where she holds the Sally Humphrey Research Professorship in Cancer Health Equity, she is also an Associate Director of the UK Center of Clinical and Translational Science. Dr. Williams received her undergraduate degrees in nursing from Union University and the Medical College of Georgia. She earned a Master’s of Nursing [Family Nurse Practitioner] from Georgia Southern University and a PhD in Nursing with Distinction from Georgia Regents University, now Augusta University. Her research aims to eliminate health disparities among racial/ethnic minority and medically underserved populations through community engaged research methods to affect improved diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer outcomes. She is nationally-recognized for developing culturally-adapted interventions for implementation by community health workers in church settings. Dr. Williams’ work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation.

Dr. Williams is a Fellow in both the American Academy of Nursing and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors such as Distinguished Alumni, Nurse Researcher of the Year National Black Nurses Association (2019) and the Kentucky Nurses Association (2019); Excellence in Research and Outstanding Published Writing. She has published in peer-reviewed journals and presented her research nationally and internationally.