Magali Williamson was awarded a BSc from Imperial College London and a PhD from the Institute of Child Health, University College London (UCL). She worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Marie Curie Research Institute on the molecular genetics of bladder cancer, and then at UCL, investigating the molecular genetics of epilepsy. In 2000 she became a lecturer at UCL, working at the Prostate Cancer Research Centre on the spread of prostate cancer.  She moved to Kings College London with PCRC in 2015 and continues to work on prostate cancer metastasis.