About

Rachel Marie-Crane Williams grew up in Eastern North Carolina, attended East Carolina University and earned a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing. She also has an M.F.A in Studio Art and a Ph.D. in Art Education from Florida State University. She was a tenured professor at the University of Iowa from 1999-2022 in the Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) Department and in the School of Art and Art History. She served two terms as chair of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. She has also served in the role of University Ombudsperson. In July of 2022 she became the dean of the Division of Liberal Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Her scholarship related to incarcerated women, comics, qualitative research, and visual art has been published in the Journal of Arts Law and Management, Visual Arts Research, Studies in Art Education, Southern Cultures, the International Journal of Comics Art, the Journal of Art Education, and the Journal of Poetry Therapy. She has received funding for her work in the arts from the National Art Education Association, the Roy J. Carver Foundation, the Iowa Arts Council, The Hull House Museum in Chicago, The National Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Humanities Iowa.

In 2021 she published two books, Run Home if You Don’t Want to be Killed: the Detroit Uprising of 1943 (UNC Press and the Duke Center for Documentary Studies) and Elegy for Mary Turner: An Illustrated Account of a Lynching (Verso Books). The Iowa Governor’s office, The Iowa Women’s Foundation, and The Iowa Correctional Association have honored her with various awards for her work in the Iowa Juvenile Home and the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. She has also received the Jean Y. Jew Award for Women’s Rights, the Michael J Brody award for service, and the President and Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence. In her spare time, she is a predatory baker, motorcycle maven, traveler, dog lover, avid reader, and a Mamma.