Shanell WIlliams

Shanell Williams is President of the Board of Trustees at City College of San Francisco, Director of Community Engagement and Partnership for the UCSF California Preterm Birth Initiative, and a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee. Over the past 20 years, Shanell has served thousands of San Franciscans as an informed, passionate, and dedicated public advocate, nonprofit leader, and community organizer. From mentoring youth trapped in cycles of incarceration—to saving City College from a near loss of accreditation and closure over the past eight years— Shanell has worked tirelessly to improve all San Franciscan’s quality of life. She has worked for numerous nonprofit agencies and labor organizations dedicated to serving marginalized, low-resourced communities such as the Young Women's Freedom Center, Youth Leadership Institute, UNITE HERE Local 2, Jobs with Justice San Francisco, and Urban Services YMCA.

Shanell is a 2005 Jefferson Award recipient and was honored for her work in co-founding Youth Treatment and Education Court Leadership Fellows, as she helped develop a curriculum to train court administrators, judges, probation officers, and thousands of service providers nationwide in culturally responsive treatment for youth in the system. She also received the 2013 San Francisco Bay Guardian Local Hero Award for her CCSF advocacy, as well as the Harvey Milk Democratic Club’s “City College Champion” Award in 2014. Shanell is a graduate of Women’s Policy Institute and the Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment, a New Leaders Council Fellow, an Emerge California alumna, and has served on the San Francisco Youth Commission, and Juvenile Justice Commission.