Malinda S. Smith

Malinda Sharon Smith is a Canadian political scientist. She is the inaugural Vice-Provost of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at The University of Calgary. Previously, she was a professor of political science at the University of Alberta, where she was also a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow and a Provost Fellow in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. She specialises in diversity and intersectionality studies, particularly as they are practiced in higher education institutions, as well as African security studies and international inequality.
Career.
Education.
Smith holds a BA and an MA in political science from Western Michigan University, and a PhD from the University of Alberta. Before joining the faculty at the University of Alberta in 2004, she was a professor at Athabasca University in Athabasca, Alberta. In 2020 she moved to The University of Calgary where she was appointed the inaugural Vice-Provost of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Research.
Smith has been the editor or co-editor of 6 books. She was the sole editor of "Globalizing Africa" (2003), "Beyond the African Tragedy: Discourses on Development and the Global Economy" (2006), and "Securing Africa: Post-9/11 Discourses on Terrorism" (2010). Many of Smith's articles in peer-reviewed journals have focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion in academia, including systematic studies of diversity among the leadership of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities and the recipients of the Canada Research Chair program.
Smith's work has been cited, or she has been quoted on topics related to her work, in news outlets like CBC News, "The Globe and Mail", "The Toronto Star", "Maclean's", and "La Rotonde".
Positions.
Smith has been the President and the Vice President of the Canadian regional branch of the International Studies Association, and was its 2018 Distinguished Scholar. She has also been the Vice President for Equity Issues at the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and a Provost Fellow in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy at the University of Alberta.
In 2020, Smith was named the inaugural Vice Provost (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, with a starting date in August 2020.
Awards.
Smith received the 2015 Equity Award of the Canadian Association of University Teachers for "outstanding contributions to equity and collective bargaining". Smith was also named a 2018 Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation; the Foundation gives $225,000 distributed over 3 years to "five fellows each year in recognition of outstanding achievement, innovative approaches to issues of public policy, and commitment to public engagement". The purpose of Smith's Fellowship was to support her book project, "A Seat at the Table: Engendering Black Canadian Pasts and Futures", which aims to centre Black Canadians in Canada's national stories about its legal, political, and educational systems.