MEGAN TAYLOR WILLIAMS

Hi, I’m Megan!

I’m an artist, educator, and community developer with a passion for equitable, justice-oriented work in all spheres.

Scroll down to learn about me and my work.


About Me

I’m an analog collage artist, ceramicist, educator, and community developer living in Sacramento, California. My work is dedicated to capturing the flow and inter-connectivity of humans to one another and the “natural,” or more-than-human world.


Portfolio

I’m an analog collage artist + ceramicist. My artistic process is heavily influenced by my values as an intersectional ecofeminist.

I work to create seamless compositions from found and discarded objects in which femme subjects are re-situated away from the male gaze and placed into surreal landscapes of beauty, pleasure, and joy.


Community Work

Learn more about my work with communities from Maryland to California

Across the roles I’ve taken on, from youth political leader to board member to community garden volunteer & more, I’ve dedicated myself to the needs and wants of my communities. To do this work, and to do it right, we must center & co-power communities that are the most structurally and systematically oppressed. Nobody’s free until we are all free.


Research

Detailed below are major research efforts I’ve undertaken as a university student and intern for Valley Vision.

  • Community Development Master’s Thesis

    Community Development Master’s Thesis

    The culmination of my graduate academic experience as part of the Community Development Graduate Group at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) was my thesis entitled “EJLP: A Case Study of Relationship Building in a Community-University Partnership Program.” This research was conducted in partnership with the Feminist Research Institute (FRI) at UC Davis, centeringContinue…

  • STAKEHOLDER MAPPING BEST PRACTICES

    STAKEHOLDER MAPPING BEST PRACTICES

    Throughout the summer of 2023, I worked as a graduate student intern with Valley Vision (VV) in Sacramento. I was a part of their Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF, now known as California Jobs First) team. VV is the regional convenor for the Capital Region, which includes the eight counties of Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo,Continue…

  • ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE & ARTISTIC EXPRESSION IN CALIFORNIA’S SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY

    ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE & ARTISTIC EXPRESSION IN CALIFORNIA’S SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY

    My core passion lies at the intersection of the arts and social justice. During my first year of my graduate studies, I was privileged to take a course on critical environmental justice of the Central Valley taught by Jonathan London. The culmination of my work in this class was a book proposal and presentation entitledContinue…

  • HEALING GROUNDS

    HEALING GROUNDS

    Healing Grounds is a neighborhood design project co-created in collaboration with a team of graduate students through our course – Urban Planning and Design – at UC Davis. This site is located in what is currently PG&E property in East Davis, at the intersection of L St and 5th St. This proposed project emphasizes theContinue…

  • YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE: FINANCIAL LITERACY & CONSUMER ADVOCACY COURSE PROPOSAL

    YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE: FINANCIAL LITERACY & CONSUMER ADVOCACY COURSE PROPOSAL

    Through my involvement in Beyond the Classroom, a civic engagement and leadership program at the University of Maryland, College Park, I worked with a capstone team to create a proposal for a financial literacy and consumer advocacy course for students. I led this research through survey design and implementation, and the drafting of the proposedContinue…


Let’s stay in touch!

Megan Taylor Williams

Community Development Specialist, Educator, Artist

About

Megan is an analog collage artist, ceramicist, educator, and community developer living in Sacramento, California. Her work is dedicated to capturing the flow and inter-connectivity of humans to one another and the “natural,” or more-than-human world. She is a community-engaged artist with a passion for collaborative creative processes. Her collage work has exhibited at Third Space Artist Collective in Davis, Sacramento Pipeworks, and the music festival Shabang in San Luis Obispo. At present, she teaches a class at the UC Davis Craft Center entitled “Photosynthesis: Cyanotype & Collage” which is a cross-studio collaboration, bringing together two different mediums to inspire play and creativity in both. She has also lead this class as a workshop with Valley Spark at their annual Playa Academy.

Her work as an artist is heavily influenced by her post-graduate studies. Megan obtained her Master of Science in Community Development at University of California, Davis. She worked with the Feminist Research Institute as a graduate student researcher on her thesis project centering their Environmental Justice Leaders Program. Her master’s thesis project was a collaboratively designed evaluative endeavor that culminated in a report with recommendations for how the institute may best cultivate community-university partnerships that better reflect and serve long-term community needs.. Megan’s focus within her studies outside of her thesis project was on public space and infrastructure, green space design, community-based participatory processes, and community cultural power.

Megan’s professional background encompasses state social service provision, local governance, education, and sustainable agriculture. She currently works at the California Department of Social Services supporting child and adult nutrition in care facilities across the state. As a former local government liaison, Megan has helped address over 4,000 community questions and concerns across a wide network of local governance structures. During her time in Howard County Government, she helped form and worked closely with La Alianza Latina, the Latino Workgroup of Howard County. Her work is informed and influenced by her passion for equity & justice-oriented community engaged work, policy, and research. Before serving Howard County full-time in her position as Constituent Services & Executive Liaison, Megan held a research technician position at the USDA’s Sustainable Agricultural Systems Lab in Beltsville, MD and a farm apprenticeship at ECO City Farms in Edmonston, MD. Her experience in education spans her entire adult life, from leading before and after-school programming for middle and elementary school youth, to her role as a teaching assistant throughout graduate school. She spent five months teaching English in Panguipulli, Los Rios Region of Chile through the Chilean Ministry of Education’s English Opens Doors program.

Megan is committed to activism and co-powering communities from Maryland to California. Her work in California has prioritized mutual aid and connecting communities to vital resources. In Maryland, she served as the President of the Howard County Young Democrats, member of the HoCo NAACP, and member of the Howard County Conservancy Board of Trustees. Her commitment is also evident in her accomplishments during her time studying Environmental Science and Policy, with a Spanish Minor at the University of Maryland College Park. As an former brother of Alpha Phi Omega, the national co-ed community service fraternity, she received the Steven Martin Scholarship for her academic achievement and commitment to community service. She was awarded the Excellence in Leadership & the Civic Engagement Awards through the Beyond the Classroom: Civic Leadership and Community Engagement program.

Get in touch

I’d love to connect with you! Please feel free to reach out through any of the following platforms.