After graduating from school in his hometown, he spent a year as an exchange student in Ohio.
He studied Scandinavian languages, and in 1983, when he spent some time as a faculty assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, he became interested in researching runestones.
In 1998, Williams served as visiting associate professor at University of California, Berkeley.
Williams also held visiting professor position at University College London and University of Central Oklahoma in 2015 and 2017 respectively, and has had fellowships and positions as visiting professor at several academic institutions in Scandinavia.
[3] Since 2010, he serves as a co-editor of Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies[4] and is a member of the editorial board of Scripta Islandica.