Life is too short to not chase what you want. Elizabeth Williams knows that well. She first enrolled at Georgia State University in 2023 to get a fresh start. In Nigeria and the UK—where she split her time growing up—everyone knew she was grieving not only the death of her mother but also the dissolution of her marriage. Since her father lived in the state of Georgia, moving to Atlanta to pursue a master’s in social work from Georgia State’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies made sense. It was a “healing program” because of how much the coursework taught her about herself and what she was going through.
M.S. in Supply Chain Management student Elizabeth Williams stands on Atlanta's iconic Jackson Street Bridge.
“I just wanted to do something new,” she said.
During her second semester, Williams inexplicably began feeling low again, and her grades had slipped. When she received an email about an academic evaluation, her heart sank, but the genuine care her professors showed in that meeting proved to be a turning point.
“They were so interested in how I was doing,” she said. “That really painted the image for me of what the staff members at Georgia State are like. That was the first support I felt since losing my mom.”
That’s when Williams decided to pivot back to her true interest—supply chain. She graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2017 with an associate of arts and from Benson Idahosa University in Nigeria in 2021 with a bachelor of arts; both degrees focused on international studies and diplomacy. Over the next four years, she worked in supply chain for Nigerian breweries and briefly in immigration.
Soon after wrapping up her master’s in social work, Williams was accepted into the one-year M.S. in Supply Chain Management program at Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business. But before classes commenced in May 2025, life threw her another curveball. She was diagnosed with cancer and had to balance classes with doctor’s appointments.
All those hurdles have encouraged Williams to pursue her passions and seize opportunities when they present themselves: like becoming president of Robinson’s Graduate Business Association and accepting a job offer from an acquaintance. Despite having no background in user research, Williams tackled the opportunity to perform UX research as part of Apple’s five-year partnership to exclusively broadcast Formula 1 in the United States via Apple TV. Since she’s a lifelong fan of motorsports, she said yes and learned along the way.
Supply chain and UX research may seem disparate on the surface, but Williams’ classes at Robinson have had immediate payoff in her day-to-day work with Formula 1. She feels confident in the edge she has over people who studied either design or UX design because instead of brainstorming how to design things better, she thinks about how to do things better.
“I think when people hear the term supply chain, the immediate thought is putting stuff in a van, but there is a large non-physical component to it,” Williams said. “Logistics involves moving from one point to the other. Supply chain consists of all the things that make that happen.”
Williams’ circumstances are unique, but she hopes other students can learn from her story anyway.
“If it doesn’t feel good, try something else,” she said. “I’m so happy that Georgia State gave me the opportunity for a new beginning.”