Joyce Williams
Professor
Dr. Joyce Williams received her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Tennessee in forensic nursing and Masters’ degree in Forensic Science from Oklahoma State University. Dr. Williams’ clinical experiences include the Intensive Care Unit, the Emergency Department, and the Child Advocacy Center. Transitioning to academia, she instructed students in forensic science at Shepherd Community and Technical College, developed and taught the forensic nursing certificate at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, taught forensic nursing doctoral students at the University of Tennessee, and the global population health graduate nursing online courses at Stevenson University. As a researcher she spent five years as part of a prevention project aimed at reducing combat mortality through protective armor for the military at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Additional research includes swabbing of the mouth for forensic DNA to learn optimal sites to collect evidence in the oral cavity following abuse. Her primary focus is injury prevention, including injury assessment on children and adults, analysis and investigation of death related to mass casualty, such as natural disasters, terrorist action and armed conflicts, and deaths that occur by violence, suicide, or suspicious/unusual manner. Dr. Williams traveled to Malaysia to work with nursing leadership in an effort to improve recruitment/retention efforts. As a Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team member, she deployed to United flight 93 following 9/11, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania in 2001 and to Baton Rouge, LA in 2005 for Hurricane Katrina. Currently, she is a member of the Victim Identification Center Team/Family Assistance. In 2015, she was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing. She serves on the expert panel for violence and quality health care, and chairs the Forensic Nursing subcommittee for Organization of Scientific Area Committees. She is a fellow/chair of the Forensic Nursing Science Section, American Academy of Forensic Science. She is a reviewer of the Journal of Forensic Nursing and Journal of Doctoral Nursing Practice. Dr. Williams is a member of the Maryland Human Trafficking ask Force Victim Services Committee, and she co-chairs the medical subcommittee. She serves on the Baltimore County Human Trafficking work group, Partnership for a Safer Maryland.