Previously Mary-Anne was a Distinguished Research Professor at University of Technology Sydney and Director of the UTS Magic Lab.

Professor Williams is an Artificial Intelligence researcher with transdisciplinary expertise in Cognitive Science, Disruptive Technologies, Digital Transformation, Business and Law.

[7] She has served on numerous boards and advisory groups including KR Inc, the Innovation Reference Group with the South Western Sydney Local Area Health District, the Digital Transformation and the AI Preparedness Committees at ATSE, the ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics.

[11] She discussed the impact of Artificial Intelligence on compassion and human rights with the Dalai Lama in Sydney in June 2018.

Williams has made foundational contributions to the field of Decision Making using insights, methods and techniques from belief revision.

It provides representations, models and mechanisms for computers to develop a set of beliefs and to revise them over time as they receive new information.