Shirley Williams is a Co-Founder of the Liberal Democratic Party and served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 1993 until retiring from that position in 2004. She was spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the Lords from 1998 to 2001.
Williams is now the Public Service Professor of Electoral Politics Emerita at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1980, she was a fellow at the School’s Institute of Politics and, in 1989-90, was IOP interim director. Williams also directed Project Liberty, which focused on the republics of the former Soviet Union, at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She was a visiting professor at the University of Essex in 1994–95, a member of the Advisory Council to the U.N. Secretary-General on the Fourth World Women’s Conference, and a member of the European Commission’s Comite de Sage on social and civil rights. She was also a President of Chatham House (Royal Institute of International affairs) 2002 - 2006.
Williams served in the British Cabinet (1974–79) as Secretary of State for Education and Science, Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, and Paymaster General; the House of Commons as a Labour MP from 1964 to 79, and as a Social Democrat MP from 1981 to 1983. She co-founded the Social Democratic Party in 1981, and served as its president from 1982 to 1988. She currently advises the government on nuclear proliferation.
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