Abigail Williams

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS-BUTLER, PHD

Affiliated Faculty

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Assistant Professor

Williams-Butler is an assistant professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in the School of Social Work. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in the Joint Social Work and Developmental Psychology program. Her research agenda is informed by her practice experience as a residential counselor for adolescents with substance abuse and mental health disorders. After completing her MSW internship at the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington DC, Williams-Butler became passionate about conducting research with both interventions and policy change in mind. Her research interests include understanding the developmental trajectories of children and adolescents in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. She is particularly interested in understanding the role that intersectionality plays in the overrepresentation of African American youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. She is also interested in identifying and understanding mechanisms to reduce racial disparities within these child serving systems.