His research seeks to understand the structural basis for macromolecular reactions, from the role of nucleic acids as targets of chemotherapeutics to the ancestral biochemistry of the ribosome during the origin of life.
As a PhD student in physical chemistry at Duke University in the laboratory of Barbara Ramsay Shaw, he studied the mechanisms of base pairing of cytosine and guanine.
At Georgia Tech, Williams has mentored 25 PhD students and received numerous awards for excellence in mentorship, teaching, outreach, and advocating for improved accessibility.
He is currently director of the NASA-funded Center for the Origin of Life (COOL) at Georgia Tech[6] and a Co-Lead of the Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environment Consortium (PCE3 a NASA Research Coordination Network).
[12][13] In collaboration with Jennifer Glass, they have shown that ferrous iron is an effective cofactor for the ribosome and other nucleic acid processing enzymes.