Meet Dr. Estell Williams, ’13, an emergency surgeon, community builder, dedicated mentor and the UW’s 2026 honoree for Black History Month. From the first grade, Dr. Estell Williams knew she wanted to be a doctor. The self-described science nerd isn’t quite sure where that came from, but she’s got a few guesses. Maybe it’s the fact that she had a Black pediatrician growing up, one whose office walls were plastered with photos of Black patients and their families, making it…
Tag: social justice
Toward liberation
Dr. Dan Berger, professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, is recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Community-Engaged Scholar Award. As a young activist, Dr. Dan Berger found special inspiration in the Black visionaries of the ’60s and ’70s. So how, he wondered, did we get here? “Here” is an era of mass incarceration, he said, in which more Americans have criminal records than have union cards. And he has made it his life’s work to answer that question….