Francesca A Williamson

Francesca A. Williamson, PhD (she/her/FW), is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Equity at the School of Public Health and the Research Center from Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research. She is the principal investigator of the HEiRS Lab, a multidisciplinary research group that investigates how real-world health(care), learning, and research practices enable or hinder equity and justice across systems.

An interdisciplinary scholar and qualitative methodologist by training, Dr. Williamson’s research program includes empirical and methodological work on how anti-Blackness, racism, adultism, ableism, and interconnected systems of inequality mutually shape knowledge, learning, research practices, and health across multiple levels of scale. Her methodological work centers on philosophical, theoretical, and practical aspects of critical and interactional approaches to qualitative inquiry, particularly Africana/Black ways of knowing, children’s ways of knowing, and discourse and conversation analysis. Her empirical work bridges interests in equity, justice, and systems change in various health and educational contexts. She conducts empirical research in clinical, community, and educational settings, with recent projects focused on patient–provider–family interactions in pediatric care, local food and nutrition systems, learning health systems, medical education, and workforce development.

Dr. Williamson is a first-generation college graduate and a TRiO alumna. Her work has received numerous awards from national and international professional associations. Through the HEiRS Lab and courses, Dr. Williamson teaches and mentors students across disciplines in qualitative methodologies and methods, health equity science, learning health systems research, and medical education research.

The HEiRS Lab investigates how real-world health(care), learning, and research practices enable or hinder equity and justice across systems. We conduct transdisciplinary research to support data-driven social and systems change with critical partners in collective action – patients and providers; research participants and researchers; learners and educators; community members and policymakers; and local organizations, places, and spaces.

Research Areas:
- Learning Health Systems
- Food Systems
- Health Equity Science
- Health Equity Workforce Development
- Qualitative Methodologies and Methods
- Discourse and Conversation Analysis
- Research Justice and Participatory Inquiry
- Anti-Blackness, Racism, Ableism, and Childhoods

Current Projects:
Healing Foodways (Community): A community-academic partnership with Growing Hope in Ypsilanti, Michigan to develop cross-sectoral, place-based food sovereignty interventions.

Health Equity Workforce Development (Education & Training): Research on competency-based health equity education in clinical environments focused on learners in graduate medical education, health sciences, and related STEM fields.

Health Equity Science in Learning Health Systems (Health Systems Change): Leveraging health equity science to inform the design, implementation, and evaluation of learning health systems.

Patient-Provider Interaction (Health Care): Audio- and video-based research on real-world patient-provider interaction to illuminate micro-level systems dynamics contributing to racialized health inequities.

Developments in Qualitative Inquiry (Methodology): Research on philosophical, theoretical, and practical aspects of qualitative methodologies and methods focused on Africana/Black ways of knowing, children’s ways of knowing, and interactional research.