Dr Oli Williams

Biography

Oli completed his PhD in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester. He was subsequently awarded the NIHR CLAHRC West Dan Hill Fellowship in Health Equity which he held at the University of Bath.

He later re-joined the University of Leicester in the Department of Health Sciences working in the SAPPHIRE Group and came in 2019 to King’s College London after being awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by The Health Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute. In 2023 he was appointed Lecturer in Co-designing Healthcare Interventions within the Methodologies Research Division of the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care. 

Oli’s research joins the dots between social inequality, public health, and people’s day-to-day lives. His research focuses on health inequalities, the promotion of healthy lifestyles, 'obesity', weight stigma, equitable intervention, and participatory methods. He co-founded the art collective Act With Love (AWL) to promote social change. The evidence-based comic ‘The Weight of Expectation’, is one example of their work and was created in collaboration with award-winning illustrator Jade Sarson. View the comic and artworks.

In recognition of his work on weight stigma, the British Science Association invited Oli to give the Margaret Mead Award Lecture for Social Sciences and ‘The Weight of Expectation’ project won ‘Best Doctoral or Early Career Research’ at the AHRC Medical Humanities Awards.

Oli has spoken about this work on a few popular podcasts & webinars. You can listen via these links:

• Don't Salt My Game hosted by Laura Thomas
• Appearance Matters hosted by Nadia Craddock and Jade Parnell at the Centre for Appearance Research
• NIHR 'That Co-production Podcast!
• The Qualitative Open Mic Podcast
• Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre Vlog 
• For more information about Oli's fellowship research, visit the THIS Institute website

Research interests

• Health inequalities
• Relationships between health and body weight
• Weight stigma
• Equitable intervention
• Participatory research methods

Enquiring about potential PhD supervision

Oli currently supervises a number of PhD students within the faculty. He is interested in and open to supervising PhD students researching: weight-related health issues, health inequalities, equitable health interventions, stigma, participatory methods.

If you’re thinking of applying for one of our PhD programmes and are looking for potential supervisors, please email nmpc_pgr_enquiries@kcl.ac.uk listing the names of the supervisors you’ve identified as having expertise in your chosen area, along with your CV and a short research proposal. 

Our Postgraduate Research Team will contact supervisors on your behalf and get back to you. If you have any queries in the meantime, please use the email address above, rather than contacting potential PhD supervisors directly, because they are unable to respond to initial enquiries.