Malinda Smith

Malinda S. Smith, PhD, is the inaugural vice-provost (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion), a professor of political science, and a 2018 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation fellow, at the University of Calgary. She has published widely in areas of international and comparative politics, as well as equity, diversity, human rights and decolonization. She is a co-author of The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian Universities (UBC Press, 2017), and a co-editor of Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy (University of Toronto Press, 2022). She is editor of three books on Africa, including Securing Africa: Post-9/11 Discourses on Terrorism (2010); and co-editor of Critical Concepts: An Introduction to Politics (sixth ed. under revision with Oxford University Press) and States of Race: Critical Race Feminism for the 21st Century (2010).

Smith serves on Statistics Canada’s Advisory Committee on Ethnocultural and Immigration Statistics and working group on Black communities in Canada, and on the Interinstitutional Advisory Committee for National Dialogues and Action for Inclusive Higher Education and Communities. She is a former vice-president, Equity Issues, for the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and chairs its advisory committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization.

Smith has won numerous awards and honours, including a 2021 Compelling Calgarians award, the 2020 Susan S. Northcutt Award from the International Studies Association, and the 2018-19 International Studies Association Canada Distinguished Scholar Award. She was named to the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women list for 2020.

Date modified:

2021-05-11