Outreach Coordinator, Management Team member, Co-investigator

University of British Columbia

Dr. Smith is an Associate Researcher in the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia. She is the former executive director of Coastal Jazz and the highly acclaimed Vancouver International Jazz Festival. During her 14-year tenure with Coastal Jazz, Dr. Smith developed the High School Jazz Intensive, the Vancouver Creative Music Institute, the Creative Music Think Tank and the oral history project JazzStreet Vancouver. Dr. Smith has published several articles in the area of gender, improvisation, and cultural studies, and sits on the editorial board of Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation. She is also the former executive director of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, where she served on the programming committee for the Chicago Jazz Festival and co-produced/co-curated the “Women of the New Jazz” festivals and the “Face the Music” new music series in Chicago. She has studied classical music, jazz performance, experimental and electronic composition and South Asian music. Dr. Smith has served on the boards of the New Orchestra Workshop Society, the Chicago Music Alliance, and the UBC Arts Co-op Advisory Committee. She holds an honours B.A. in music from York University, a diploma in jazz and music studies from Humber College, an M.A. in interdisciplinary arts from Chicago's Columbia College, and a Ph.D in interdisciplinary studies from the University of British Columbia.