Kristi Williams is an Australian/American designer and lecturer based in Cardiff, California.

Currently, Kristi leads the graphic design courses for the first BA program to be offered at Centinela State Prison. SDSU’s VISTA degree is the first of its kind. Alongside this role, each weekend she leads rehabilitative art programming with the Prison Arts Collective at Centinela and Richard J. Donovan State Prisons. In all of this work, she endeavours to expand who has access to education and to the arts. Her students share that learning about design changed the way they see.

Outside of her courses, Kristi continues to design interiors and custom furniture pieces. Her freelance interior and furniture design studio is informed by years of experience in the design and fabrication of contemporary art and hospitality spaces in Brooklyn, New York, and Los Angeles. 

Kristi was awarded an MFA degree in Applied Design at SDSU School of Art and Design, a BA degree in Design at Monash University’s MADA in Melbourne, Australia, and an AA in Fine Cabinetmaking at the Krenov School in Mendocino, California.

Her ongoing research and creative practice have been supported by artistic awards and leadership grants for under-represented women in her field.