Jody Williams

Jody Williams is an American political activist and a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) for "their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines."

Williams was born on October 9, 1950, in Rutland, Vermont. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont (1972), a master’s degree in teaching Spanish and ESL from the School for International Training (1976), and a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1984).

Williams is the founding coordinator of the ICBL, which was formally launched by six nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in October 1992, serving in that role through 1998. Before beginning ICBL, she served as the deputy director of the organization Medical Aid for El Salvador, based in Los Angeles (1986 to 1992) and as co-coordinator of the Nicaragua-Honduras Education Project (1984 to 1986).

In 2006, Williams established the Nobel Women's Initiative and still serves as its chair. The initiative brings together a number of the female Peace laureates to work with other women’s organizations and individuals to promote peace, justice, and equality. Since 2007, Williams has also been the Sam and Cele Keeper Professor in Peace and Social Justice in the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston, where she had previously been a distinguished visiting professor of global justice.

“Jody Williams – Biographical.” The Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1997/williams/biographical.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2025, Feb. 19). “Jody Williams: American activist.” In Britannica. Retrieved August 6, 2025 from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jody-Williams.