John R. Williams, M.D.

John was born and raised in Mt. Airy, MD. He enrolled at Swarthmore College and earned a BA in film theory and literature in 2006. He spent a year in Missoula, MT waiting tables and hiking, a year in Berlin, Germany on a Fulbright Fellowship, a year in New York City working in film, a year in Southern Louisiana making the feature film “Beasts of the Southern Wild” as a producer. As “Beasts” was winning Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and garnering four Academy Award nominations, John was completing his pre-med coursework requirements at Bryn Mawr College and enrolling at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University. He graduated from Brown in 2015 having received the Joseph Collins Foundation Scholarship and Stanley Aronson Prize for best neuroscience research. Initially intent on pursuing a career in public health and primary care, he transitioned focus toward neurosurgery under the mentorship of Wael Asaad, MD PhD. Outstanding mentorship in neurosurgery lead to training in Seattle under Dr. Richard Ellenbogen. John lives with his wife, Jill, a critical care nurse. John and Jill surf as much as possible along the staggering beauty of the Olympic Peninsula on weekends and around the world on vacation. John also enjoys dystopian and epic literature, electronic music, narrative and documentary media, and eating spaghetti in bed when Jill is out of town.  

Select Awards and Honors:  

Academic All-Conference in Lacrosse, Swarthmore College 

Fulbright Research Scholarship, Berlin Germany 

Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, as producer on “Beasts of the Southern Wild” 

Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, as producer on “Beasts of the Southern Wild” 

Stanley Aronson Prize for best neuroscience research, AMS at Brown University 

Joseph Collins Foundation Scholarship, AMS at Brown University 

NREF Research Fellowship Grant, University of Washington