Dr. Ryan B. Williams serves as Associate Professor of Economics & Public Policy, and Associate Dean, in the School of Veterinary Medicine. His program of research has focused on aspects of the water-energy-food nexus (WEF) and more recently expanded to include related research questions in One Health. Dr. Williams has secured over $2 million in grant funding to support his efforts, including awards from USDA and the High Plains Underground Water District; and was continuously awarded funding by the Ogallala Aquifer Program between 2015 and 2022. He has been invited to the Sultanate of Oman and the People’s Republic of China to collaborate on WEF issues, represented Texas Tech at the first two Big 12 Water Conferences, presented research at the 2014 Fracturing Impacts and Technologies Conference, and served as an invited panelist at the 2018 “Rethinking Texas Water Policy” meetings in College Station, TX. His research has been published in Energy Economics, Energy Journal, The Electricity Journal, Agricultural Water Management, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, Food Security, Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, and Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education. In 2019, Dr. Williams was named an Integrated Scholar at Texas Tech University.

Originally from the redwood forests of northern California, Dr. Williams earned a BA from Emory University, his master’s in economics from North Carolina State University, and his PhD in economics from Texas Tech University in 2009. Prior to joining the School of Veterinary Medicine in Amarillo, Ryan served on faculty in the Department of Agricultural & Applied Economics between 2011 and 2020, holding a joint appointment with Texas A&M AgriLife Research in Lubbock beginning in 2015.