Dr. Joseph Williams has been promoted with tenure to Associate Professor of Architecture by the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. An expert in medieval architecture in Italy and the greater Mediterranean, Williams’s teaching and research explore how architecture reflects cultural exchange, commerce and knowledge-sharing across the Mediterranean world. He brings critical expertise in archaeological research methods, including digital tools such as Geographic Information Systems and photogrammetry, to the study and teaching of architectural history.
Williams has published widely on medieval and classical architecture. His works include Architecture of Disjuncture: Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th–13th Centuries), a study of adaptive cathedral design in southern Italy, and The Visual Preservation of Roman Stabiae: The Villa Arianna Survey and the Study of Frescoes in Their Physical Context, the first comprehensive survey of the decorated walls of the Villa Arianna, carried out by UMD faculty, students, and alumni from 2011–2024. He has led the documentation of Villa Arianna of ancient Stabiae, an Italian seaside enclave for the Roman elite buried in the ashes of Vesuvius, since 2021. The research will be featured in a gallery exhibition at the University of Maryland’s Kibel Gallery later this fall.
Williams earned his Ph.D. in Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University and was awarded the prestigious Phyllis W.G. Gordan/Lily Auchincloss/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize. He also holds a Master’s degree in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, specializing in Gothic architecture, and a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from Bates College.
Read more in his biography.