Former journalist and public relations executive Judy Williams joined UALR Tuesday as the University’s new director of Communications.

The position has been vacant since July, when former director Amy O. Barnes accepted a teaching position in UALR’s School of Mass Communications.

Williams, previously the director of media relations at Hendrix College, comes to UALR with more than 26 years of public relations and marketing experience. Before joining Hendrix, she was a senior public relations account executive at Stone Ward advertising agency in Little Rock.

She also served as marketing director at the Aerospace Education Center and IMAX Theatre in Little Rock and as marketing director of Doctors Hospital in Little Rock. She began her public relations career at Lions World Services for the Blind.

Williams is a former member of the board of directors for the Arkansas chapter of Public Relations Society of America. She is a past president of the Arkansas chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators and a recipient of the chapter’s President’s Award in Communications Excellence.

A former reporter for the Arkansas Democrat, Williams also reported for the Muskogee Daily Phoenix in Oklahoma, the Hutchinson News in Kansas, and the Macomb Daily Journal in Illinois. She attended Oklahoma Baptist University and received a journalism degree from UALR in 1989.