James Williamson, PhD
James Williamson is a professor at Scripps Research in the Departments of Chemistry and Integrative Structural & Computational Biology. His research involves the study of RNA structure, RNA-protein interactions and RNA-ligand interactions using biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology approaches.
Among his many early scientific career accomplishments, Dr. Williamson was named a Searle Scholar, a Rita Allen Scholar and a Sloan Research Fellow. His studies have appeared in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, and in 2010, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He currently serves on editorial boards for a number of top scientific journals and contributes to the governing board of the Translational Institute at Scripps Research.
At Scripps Research, Williamson successfully executed multiple leadership roles, especially those encompassing academic planning and training. In 2001, he was named associate dean for the Chemistry program and from 2008 to 2017, he was the dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for the institute’s nationally ranked graduate program. He was named vice president of Academic Affairs in 2015 and held the executive vice president role from 2017 through 2022.
Williamson earned his doctorate in chemistry at Stanford University in 1988. Following postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado, he joined the faculty of the Chemistry department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he attained the rank of associate professor with tenure. He accepted an appointment to Scripps Research as a professor in 1998.