Heidi Williams is the Director of Science Policy at the Institute for Progress and a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College.

Heidi's research focuses on how society can best support science and innovation, and how we can best ensure that science and innovation generate broad benefits to society.

Heidi serves as Co-Chair (with Paul Niehaus) of J-PAL’s new Science for Progress Initiative. She is also the Editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where she co-directs the Health Care program (with Amy Finkelstein) and co-directs the Innovation Policy working group (with Ben Jones).

Heidi received her AB in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 2003, her MSc in development economics from Oxford University in 2004, and her PhD in economics from Harvard in 2010. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2015), and has been recognized for her undergraduate teaching, graduate teaching, and graduate advising.