Meet Dr. Estell Williams, ’13, an emergency surgeon, community builder, dedicated mentor and the UW’s 2026 honoree for Black History Month.
By Malavika Jagannathan
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 look like a relative’s living room. Or all those times she tagged along with her cousin to nursing classes at a local community college, taking copious and detailed notes, even as a child. But ultimately, when Williams attended a summer program designed to introduce her to health careers as a teenager, she knew medicine was her calling.
The California native eventually found her way up to Seattle for medical school at the University of Washington — and hasn’t left. Today, Wiliams is an emergency surgeon and associate professor at the UW School of Medicine, while also serving as executive director for the Center for Workforce Inclusion and Healthcare System Equity (WIHSE) and vice chair for diversity, equity and inclusion for the surgery department. Together with her spouse, Assistant Dean and UW Associate Teaching Professor Edwin Lindo, she co-founded Estelita’s Library, a social justice bookstore and community hub in South Seattle.
In celebration of Black History Month, the UW and the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity celebrate Dr. Williams for her inclusive leadership, mentorship of future doctors, and dedication to building community on and beyond campus.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Give us a snapshot of who you are and your personal story.
I’m originally from Oakland, California, the youngest of seven. I was raised by a father who hailed from rural Louisiana. He grew up on the plantation where my great-grandparents were enslaved. The messaging he gave me growing up is how intelligent and smart I was, and he paid
for my education before he paid for the mortgage. That was my first example of sacrifice and hard work, so it didn’t feel so hard for me to go to school and work hard.
My biological mother, who passed away this last year, unfortunately fell victim to the drug epidemic in Oakland after I was born. For a long time, I was afraid to tell that story because it felt stereotypical: A young Black girl from the United States who had a parent addicted to drugs and raised in a single-parent household. I felt like I fit a negative mold of what it meant to be Black in America.
I carried that with me until I started realizing the strength that existed in that story. Although my mother fell victim to substance abuse, she recovered. She had an amazing career, bought a home and married. It showed me that we don’t throw people away. A temporary circumstance does not devalue who they are as a person. And the strength that runs through my veins is the strength that my mother had to conquer her addiction. I have a strong family who instilled so much in me and would not be who I am without that foundation.
What was your journey to college and medical school like?
I went to Xavier University, a historically Black college and university in New Orleans, because it is the number one school in placing African Americans in medical school. I continued that journey at the University of San Francisco after Hurricane Katrina when I moved back home. I ultimately came to the University of Washington for medical school because my older sister wanted me in Washington state while my niece was in middle school.
After getting the acceptance, I was invited through the School of Medicine for a “second look,” an opportunity to see the campus. I was able to meet other students. It was a very diverse group, despite the overall lack of diversity within the school, and I finally saw people I felt connected to. Shortly after, I committed to the UW.
Medical school was a blur and amazing. I also ended up meeting my husband who moved here for law school. We met each other at a Halloween party that October and have been connected at the hip ever since. I stayed here for residency and then for a faculty position. There has always been something about the UW community, the people who have invested in me and wanted to see me be successful. It truly turned into the best decision I could have ever made.
How did you create or find community in medical school?
I don’t know if it’s luck or divine timing, but the people I met during that second look and in something called pre-matriculation (a program that supports admitted medical students from under-resourced backgrounds) were my people throughout medical school — and even now. Dr. Anisa Ibrahim, the medical director of pediatrics at Harborview Medical School, is a Somali immigrant who stayed in a refugee camp in Kenya and moved to the United States when she was young. She was in second look with me when we were deciding on medical school. She did pre-matriculation with me and was in every single course. Every phase of residency, we did together, and we continue to have our children play together. The people I met became lifelong friends.
In 2009, when I entered medical school, we had a historic number of African American medical students that were admitted since 1974. Aside from that, I had a wonderful diversity of students who were represented there. The beauty of what it means to have a community of support around you is that it can enrich your own experience, but even the experiences of the people you are around
How do your balance your roles as a UW School of Medicine faculty member, surgeon and executive director of WIHSE?
I spend my day living my best life. It feels dreamlike to be able to do what I do day in and day out. I’m a surgeon and an associate professor of surgery. I do emergency general surgery at the UW, both at Montlake and Northwest Hospital. I also serve as the executive director for the Center for Workforce Inclusion and Healthcare System Equity, a center I developed to help inspire the next generation of individuals from economically and educationally under-resourced communities to enter health-care careers.
This stems again from my own story. I made it through as a surgeon because of outreach programs I participated in and mentors. I’ve always continued to volunteer and work within those programs as a medical student and resident. When I became faculty, (former UW School of Medicine) Dean Paul Ramsey recruited me to run the Doctor for a Day program and grow the outreach work we were doing through the School of Medicine. I knew that was just one piece of the pie. There were so many ways we can continue to work with those students, so we now have five programs under the center.
What is the Doctor for a Day program and how did you first get involved?
I credit another close friend, Dr. Joy Thurman-Nguyen, a family medicine doctor who is both African American and Filipina and grew up in South Seattle. She recognized there wasn’t any engagement from the School of Medicine in that community to teach and engage with youth. In medical school, she had a vision to bring that sort of engagement to the South Seattle community. Being a product of those programs, it spoke to my soul.
Before I came to medical school, I served as a coordinator and a director for a consortium of programs through the Alameda County Public Health Department. I had already started working on my skills to develop and run programs like this because I knew that was part of the future that I wanted for my career.
Initially, it was a grassroots effort with just some medical students just going out and holding some workshops to teach the local kids how to do physical exams. As a resident, I started helping the medical students run the program and help facilitate them coming to our simulation lab. Fast-forward to my first couple years as a faculty member, I was really focused on institutionalizing the program, creating more structure instead of it being grassroots and student-run. From there, I moved into getting more grant support and brought back a program called UDOC (Youth and Doctors of Color), which is a summer residential program for high school students. The five programs that I run out of the center are really geared around following students and supporting them along their educational journey to enter a health-care career. Doctor for a Day plants the seed. UDOC is for students who are rising seniors in high school to help them establish strong foundational skills before they step foot on that college campus. Then we have a summer program to support college students to become competitive medical school applicants and tools to be successful medical students. It’s a full spectrum of programs.
Tell us all about Estelita’s Library.
I co-founded Estelita’s Library, a social justice-focused community library and bookstore, with my husband and partner. People can support our work through our online bookstore, which has
all titles available, but our physical space curates the books around BIPOC authors, movements of liberation and social justice. We consider ourselves being in community, rooted in community and for community. We serve as a hub and want you to come in, engage in conversation and build community. We host a Black men’s mental health therapy group, a silent book club, knitting club and more. We want all people to use the space, to learn more about each other, and break down barriers and walls.
We have two locations, one in the Central District and another location we just acquired in Beacon Hill. We’re in the process of doing a capital campaign to clean up that location, which used to be an old gas station. We purchased it with the full understanding that we’d be doing a cleanup, bringing in our new headquarters and cultural hub, as well as about 30 to 40 units of affordable housing.
Why is Estelita’s Library serving as the developer for this housing project?
When you use the traditional model, developers get federal income tax credits to offset the cost of building housing. But you have to use federal income levels for the income requirements for tenants. And if you’ve ever looked at those federal income requirements, it’s not much. If you make even a dollar over that amount, you don’t qualify or you can lose your housing. Unfortunately, that traps people in cycles of poverty because they’re not able to engage in economic upward mobility to advance their careers or economic potential.
That’s why we are serving as a primary developer because we can set our own income requirements. We’re also going to be engaging in financial literacy education and other methods of support so that people don’t have to be forever renters. As a result of working within our housing infrastructure, they can get that job, get that pay raise, save those funds and ultimately engage and become —and see a future for themselves.