DR. MALINDA S. SMITH
R.A.C.E. 2010 Conference Convener
Dr. Malinda S. Smith is an associate professor of international and comparative politics in the Department of Political Science. Her current research and teaching interests are in the areas of terrorism, development studies, and equity, anti-racism and social justice. She is the author of number of articles and chapters on African security, poverty and inequality, and international development. She is the editor of three volumes on Africa, including Globalizing Africa (Africa World Press, 2003); Beyond the ‘African Tragedy’: Discourses on Development and the Global Economy (Ashgate 2006); and Securing Africa: Post-9/11 Discourses on Terrorism (Ashgate 2010). She is the co-editor with Sherene Razack and Sunera Thobani, States of Race: Critical Race Feminism for the 21st Century (forthcoming, Between the Lines, July 2010). She is currently working on, Understudy: Equity in the Academy (for University of Toronto Press).
Dr Smith is a member of the R.A.C.E. National Steering Committee, and the vice-president Equity Issues for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She is also a member of the University of Alberta’s Equity Issues Advisory Committee, the AASUA’s Equity Committee, and the Department of Political Science’s Undergraduate Committee. Dr. Smith was the University’s first representative to the City of Edmonton’s working group for the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination, which produced the City’s Racism Free Edmonton Action Plan. As well, Dr. Smith coordinated the ‘Great Minds, Nobel Ideas’ with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott in the Faculty of Arts (2007-09), which was funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (2008-09). She co-initiated and co-coordinates the joint Faculties of Arts and Education’s Endowed Chair in Canadian, African and Caribbean Studies initiative.
In September 1998, Dr. Smith was the recipient of the Black Achievement Award (Educator category) from the Black Achievement Award Society of Alberta, and in March 2010 the Anti-Racism Award (individual category) from the Alberta Centre for Race and Culture.