Interested in a Virtual and On-Site Keynote or Workshop?
Our interactive Workshops equip graduate students and faculty with leadership, professional, and life skills for academic success and personal well-being.
Each keynote and workshop:
Boosts your faculty mentoring or graduate professional development.
Is engaging and interactive.
Includes practice exercises and implementation coaching.
Provides resources for post-workshop use.
Speaking Topics
I speak on leadership, productivity, and growth. Please see below for details on the virtual keynotes and workshops I lead.
Set Achievable Goals, Meet Your Deadlines and Have a Life while in Academia
Plan for academic and life success 90 days at a time. Learn the practices to balance the demands of academic life, make your mark as a scholar and leader, and achieve greater work-life harmony. Gain the skills to effectively communicate your availability and time-boundaries with colleagues and at home, especially during peak work seasons. By the session’s end, you will create a 90-Day Action Plan that you can implement for a productive, intentional and joyful semester.
Cultivate Mentors to Achieve Your Next-Level Career and Life Goals
Mentorship can be the golden key to unlock career clarity, direction, and new opportunities. Discover how to confidently build and maintain meaningful, reciprocal relationships with a diverse circle of mentors. Learn how to tap into mentorship to set and achieve your career and life goals. Participants will leave the workshop better able to identify potential mentors, avoid common missteps when requesting mentorship, and build rapport with career advocates — all with confidence and authenticity!
5 Steps to Jumpstart Your Career Beyond Academia
Academics have many career options, but often struggle to seamlessly translate their degrees and experience into successful careers beyond academia. Learn the five steps to transition from graduate school to career, using the Options for Success framework. Glean from the career transition case studies of five PhDs from various disciplines and career stages who used Options for Success to launch well-paying, intellectually-stimulating careers. Gain the inspiration and step-by-step strategies to confidently pursue and secure the career of your choice, starting now.
Get Recognized for Your Work: Building Your Influence in Academia
Contrary to popular belief, great work does not speak for itself. Your work needs a voice. Your work has the potential to influence your field, create positive impact, and advance your career, but not if it remains hidden. This is especially true for leaders whose perspectives and contributions have been historically overlooked or undervalued at work. Professional women, people of color, immigrants, and other minoritized groups often struggle to promote their work for fear of seeming self-important or inauthentic. In this workshop, participants learn the skills to go from overworked and overlooked to experiencing greater fulfillment and inclusion as a leader and valued contributor.
Where We’ve Spoken
Praise for our Workshops
“Fatimah has deep expertise and has been a wonderful partner to our office for over 5 years. Having had the pleasure of observing her in both in-person and virtual workshops, I would recommend engaging her for either – both are effective.”
Beth Tracy, Senior Director of Faculty Development, Rutgers University
“Dr. Williams was the keynote speaker at our graduate student orientation several years ago, and it still remains one of the best orientation events we’ve ever hosted!”
Alyssa Stalsberg Canelli, Ph.D., Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, Brandeis University
“Very interactive facilitator, logical progression of ideas.”
Dominique Bouavichith, University of Michigan, Linguistics
“The speaker created a really supportive atmosphere. The program presented is very useful. Wish I’d had something similar at the beginning of my career.”
Margaret Gradie, Health Policy & Practice, Brown University