Dr. Meaghan Williams achieved her doctorate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023. Prior to her doctoral studies, Dr. Williams completed an MA in Political Studies at Queen’s University, where her research examined non-territorialized forms of self-rule for Indigenous peoples in settler contexts. Previously, Dr. Williams completed an Honours Bachelor of Social Science in International Development and Globalization at the University of Ottawa.   

Dr. Williams’ academic research in Indigenous-settler relations is informed by several years of experience in the non-profit and governmental sectors, including time spent at the Assembly of First Nations and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resource’s Aboriginal Policy Branch. As a result of her time in these and other organizations, Dr. Williams strives to ensure that scholarly attention to Indigenous-settler issues is equally accessible to those outside the academy.   

When Dr. Williams joined the University of Toronto’s doctoral program in political science, she began to consider more deeply how federalism as a political system that has historically been used to manage group-based difference within state boundaries applies to Indigenous and settler peoples in the Canadian context. Drawing on the preeminent work of Indigenous scholars who first devised the theory of treaty federalism, Dr. Williams’ dissertation revives the theory for scholarly and popular consideration by elaborating a theory of shared rule that creates spaces of shared political representation for both Indigenous and settler peoples.