For more than two decades, Cynthia Williams has been active in the field of the history of decorative arts and design. In 2015, after 15 years as director/assistant professor of the MA program in the History of Decorative Arts offered through George Mason University in partnership with The Smithsonian Associates, she returned to the New York area. As project director for a major real estate firm, she curated The Power of Discovery, a permanent exhibition including landscape design documenting the history of the Boyce Thompson Institute, a pioneering plant science research institute whose 1920s site in Yonkers, NY has been saved and meticulously readapted as a multipurpose healthcare, retail, dining and community center.

Prior to her academic career, Williams held corporate communication and human resources assignments at Fortune 500 companies including Nestle Foods, Avon Products, Xerox and Sony Corporation. She has a BA from Pace University, an MA in Corporate Communication from Fairfield University and an MA in the History of Decorative Arts from Parsons School of Design/Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum, and she is currently pursuing her PhD in art history at the University of Glasgow with a specialism in history of glass. She has served on the board of trustees at The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass since 2009 and began serving as board president in 2014.