Benjamin Williams

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Chair

Benjamin Williams is a professor and, effective July 1, 2025, chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Prior to this appointment, he served as vice chair for graduate studies in the department from 2023 to 2025 and chaired the school’s Faculty Executive Committee from 2015 to 2017.

Williams, who joined UCLA in 2007, conducts research on lasers and photonic devices that operate at very high frequencies and long wavelengths. He leads the Terahertz and Infrared Photonics Group, which investigates the physics and development of novel semiconductor devices — particularly quantum-cascade lasers — based on engineered quantum-electronic and electromagnetic metamaterials. He is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

He has received a number of accolades for his research, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Young Faculty Award and the National Science Foundation CAREER award. Williams has advised more than a dozen UCLA doctoral students and teaches multiple classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Prior to joining UCLA, Williams was a postdoctoral associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in physics from Haverford College in Pennsylvania. During that time, he received the American Physical Society Apker Award for undergraduate research.