Alumni Merit Award

Each year U-M Industrial and Operations Engineering recognizes an alum who personifies the College of Engineering’s tradition of excellence.

2023 Alumni Merit Award Honoree: Damon P. Williams

Damon P. Williams serves as the inaugural associate dean for inclusive excellence and chief diversity officer, advancing the Georgia Tech’s diversity and inclusion initiatives and supporting a climate of equity and belonging across Georgia Tech’s community. Williams is a member of the academic faculty in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), where he is a senior lecturer and director of ISyE’s Center for Academics, Success, and Equity, which he founded in 2020. He also speaks nationally on higher education and diversity in academia.

Williams earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech in 2002 and then a master’s and PhD in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan. He returned to Georgia Tech as a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Teaching and Learning and a part-time lecturer in ISyE in 2010. He turned his attention to teaching and advising full-time in 2014.

Williams also earned a Master of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and serves as senior pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in southwest Atlanta.