Sadé Williams

Sadé Williams (she/her) is a Ph.D. in Education student specializing in Sociocultural and Community-based Approaches to Research in Education at the University of Delaware. She is a professional educator, researcher and facilitator with over 10 years of experience working with students, education professionals, community-based organizations and school districts. 

Her research examines the educational experiences of students from historically excluded backgrounds, with particular attention to college access and equity in higher education. Grounded in the sociology of education, her work explores how race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class shape students’ interactions with educational institutions and broader structures of power. Drawing on Black cultural studies, Black feminist thought and Afrofuturism, her scholarship also considers how culture, storytelling and speculative thought can illuminate alternative possibilities for equity, belonging and institutional transformation in education.

Williams’ broader research interests include the sociology of education,  race, ethnicity, and educational inequality, Black cultural studies, Black feminist thought, gender and sexuality studies, social and cultural elites, and Afrofuturism and speculative thought.

Education

• M.A., Sociology, concentration in Race and Ethnicity, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 2022
• B.A. Sociology and Anthropology, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT

Recent Professional Experience

• Graduate Research Assistant, Jarett Haley, School of Education, College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware, 2025–present
• Graduate Research Assistant, Center for Research Use in Education, Center for Research in Education and Social Policy, College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware, 2023–2025
• Graduate Research Assistant, Rosalie Rolón-Dow, School of Education, College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware, 2023–2025
• Adjunct Professor, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, 2020–2023

Recent Presentations

• Williams, S. (2026, May). Access, Belonging, and Exchange: Spelman College and the History of HBCU–HWI Domestic Exchanges. SAI Annual Conference, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• Haley, J. D., Williams, A., Williams, S., & Quick, A. (2026, April). Students navigating the impacts of anti-DEI laws on their experiences in racial/ethnic graduate student organizations. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting.
• Rolón-Dow, R., & Williams, S. (2025, April). Racial microaggressions – Responses and effects: Undergraduate student stories of experiences on campus residential spaces [Conference presentation]. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Boulder, CO.
• Williams, S. (2024, November). Echoes of resistance: Harnessing the classical texts of Black women scholars to guide modern social justice and liberation work. Paper presented at the National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference, Detroit, MI.

Honors and Awards 

• University of Delaware Graduate Scholar Award, 2023–2025
• National Women’s Studies Association Women of Color Leadership Project Fellowship, 2023
• Temple University First Summer Research Initiative Grant, 2019
• Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers Associate Fellowship, 2016–2017, 2022–2023