Dr. Patriann Smith’s unique professional journey is informed by her transnational experiences as a multilingual human, formerly a predominantly home-schooled child and K-12 English language arts (ELA) teacher in Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, now functioning as a Black immigrant scholar-mother-professor in the United States, a process she describes in the Critical Conversations video, “On De-essentializing Linguistic Blackness and Black Diasporic Possibilities.”
Educational Background
Dr. Smith began her first two-year degree in Teacher Training at the then Caribbean Union College (now the University of the Southern Caribbean) [2000]. The degree was granted by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. At the same time, she earned an Associate of Arts degree in Teacher Training from Andrews University and soon after, a Bachelor of Science degree from the same institution [2005]. Both degrees were accredited by Andrews University; however, she pursued studies on the then Caribbean Union College campus in Trinidad & Tobago. Dr. Smith later migrated to the US to pursue a Master of Arts in Reading Education at the University of South Florida [2010]. Not too long after, she earned a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Literacy Studies and Multilingual Education at USF [2013].
Faculty Positions
Dr. Smith joined the language/literacy faculty as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) [Fall, 2013]. She transitioned to Texas Tech University (TTU) as an Assistant Professor [Fall, 2015], and as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida (USF) in the Literacy Studies program after joining the faculty [Fall, 2019]. She applied for tenure [Fall, 2020] and received tenure and promotion as Associate Professor at USF [Fall, 2021]. Dr. Smith received promotion to Full Professorship at USF in 2024.
Professional Mission
As a Literacy Studies faculty member, Dr. Smith’s professional mission is accomplished through her research, teaching, and service. Her scholarship focuses on the cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, and cross-racial experiences of Black immigrants, many of whom are adolescents, teachers, and educators. She explores their literacy learning, instruction, and assessment, to propose novel solutions for demonstrating the assets of youth.
Dr. Smith’s commitment to pursuing this professional mission is evidenced in the article, “How does a Black person speak English?: Beyond American language norms” published in 2020 by the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ). As of 2020, AERJ had an impact factor of 5.013, ranked 5/263 in journals on education and educational research and 8/1222 in education journals. It is also evidenced in her book titled, “Literacies of Migration: Translanguaging Imaginaries of Innocence,” published by Cambridge University Press in 2024 and in her book titled, “Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language and Immigration”, published by Teachers College Press in 2023 — winner of the Modern Language Association (MLA) Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize Honorable Mention.
This committment is further visible in her co-authored book, “Affirming Black Students’ Lives and Literacies: Bearing Witness,” with Drs. Arlette Willis and Gwendolyn McMillon published in 2022 by Teachers College Press, and her co-edited book, Educating African Immigrant Youth: Schooling and Civic Engagement in K–12 Schools, with Drs. Vaughn Watson & Michelle Knight-Manuel published by Teachers College Press in 2024. In addition to her regular responsibilities, Dr. Smith has served in several local, national, and international leadership roles during her tenure at UIUC, TTU, and now, USF.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
First, from 2013-2015, Dr. Smith served as Coordinator and Program Leader for the Reading Teacher Endorsement (RTE) and Reading Specialist Endorsement (RSE) Programs at UIUC. She was responsible for transitioning the RTE and RSE from face-to-face to online as well as gaining approval for the revised online RSE from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).
During this time, she also engaged locally in community-engaged service as the UIUC Summer Reading Clinic Coordinator, where she recruited underserved K-12 students, taught graduate students to assess and instruct them in literacy, and presented recommendations to teachers and school administrators upon student completion of the program.
Nationally, during this period (2013-2016), Dr. Smith was appointed Parliamentarian of the Executive Board of LRA and served by interpreting the policies, procedures, and bylaws alongside three LRA presidents and the Executive Board/Board of Directors of the organization. Internationally, during that time, she also served on the International Reading Association (IRA: now International Literacy Association: ILA) Literacy, Diversity, and Multiculturalism Committee, designing and revising the organization’s initiatives to meet the needs of underserved populations.
Texas Tech University
Upon assuming a position at TTU, Dr. Smith was appointed locally as Literacy Champion for the Dunbar College Preparatory Academy. She engaged in community-engaged research, teaching, and service also, as a Project Manager for the Literacy Champion Initiative (2015-2017). This initiative was funded by the East Lubbock Promise Neighborhood U.S. Department of Education Grant (USDOE) designed to improve the literacy performance of diverse and underserved students.
Dr. Smith also served as an appointed member of the Graduate Academic Affairs Committee (GAAC) for the College, and as Faculty (Co-)Advisor for the Caribbean Student Association (2016-2019). Nationally, she was appointed to the LRA Ethnicity, Race and Multilingualism Committee and served for three years (2015-2018).
Internationally, Dr. Smith was elected as Intercultural Communications Interest Section Newsletter Editor for the Teaching English to speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Association and served for two years (2015-2017). During her tenure at TTU, she was invited as Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Literacy Research (JLR) (2016-) and the Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) (2018-).
University of South Florida
Since joining the faculty at USF, Dr. Smith has served as elected Chair of the Governance Committee in the Department of Language, Literacy, Ed.D., Exceptional Education, and Physical Education (LLEEP) (2019-2022), working with the support of LLEEP Department Chair and faculty, to revise the governance document recently approved as part of consolidation efforts towards “ONE USF, Geographically Distributed”.
Dr. Smith served also on the USF Graduate Council (2020-2023) and coordinated the Racial Justice for Literacy Research Webinar with the David Anchin Center (2021), as USF Faculty Success Teaching & Learning Advisory Panel, Provost’s Office (2021-2022), as an elected member of the USF Graduate Council: Graduate Council Policy & Fellowship Committee (2021-2023), and as appointed USF Faculty Senate Parliamentarian (2023-2024). She was again recently elected as Chair of the Governance Committee in the Department of Language, Literacy, Ed.D., Exceptional Education, and Physical Education (LLEEP) (2024-2026).
Locally, Dr. Smith was appointed as a Board Member of the Caribbean Community Association (CCA) of Tampa Bay and co-coordinated the Martin Luther King (MLK) ‘Passport to Literacy’ program (2020).
Nationally, she was elected to the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association (LRA) and served alongside three LRA presidents in this capacity for three years (2020-2023). Dr. Patriann Smith has since been elected as President of LRA (2024-2028) for a four-year term and is currently serving as Vice-President (2024-2025). She will go on to serve as President-Elect (2025-2026), President (2026-2027), and Past President (2027-2028) of the organization.
Also nationally, in her editorial capacity, she served as Guest Editor of the Teachers College Record (TCR) volume titled, “Clarifying the Role of Race in the Literacies of Black Immigrant Youth” (2020) and also, was invited to serve as Editorial Review Board Member for journals such as Research in the Teaching of English (2022-), International Multilingual Research Journal (2022-), Literacy Research: Theory, Method and Practice (2021-), and The Reading Teacher (2021-). Her recent Co-Guest Edited issues have been completed with the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (IQSE) (2022), the UKLA’s esteemed journal, Literacy (2023), and with NCTE’s Research in the Teaching of English (RTE) (2024) resulting in the Guest Edited Special Issue “Diasporic Tellings of Race, Literacies, Joys, and Geographies in Black African immigrant Youth” (in press).
Internationally, Dr. Smith has served as Associate Editor of the International Journal of Linguistics and Education (L&E) (2019-2025) and as Associate/Co-Editor of the Caribbean Educational Research Journal (CERJ) (2022-2023/2018-2021).
Recognition of Scholarship, Teaching, Service
From her initial appointment as a faculty member up until the present, Dr. Smith has received several local, national, and international awards that attest to her commitment to her professional mission through community-engaged research, teaching, and service. Among these are the International Reading Association Reading Hall of Fame Emerging Scholar Award (2013-2017), Literacy Research Association Award for Dedicated Service (2013-2016), American Educational Research Association Language and Social Processes Emerging Scholar Award (2015), TTU’s Alumni Association New Faculty Award (2017), Literacy Research Association Scholars of Color Transitioning into Academic Research Institutions (STAR) Award (2017-2018), TTU’s President’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2018), TTU’s President’s Excellence in Diversity and Equity Award (2018), TTU’s Integrated Scholar Award (2019), USF’s Outstanding Research Achievement Award (2021), USF World’s Global Research Excellence Award (2022), USF’s Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Award (2024), and the Modern Language Association (MLA’s) Mina P. Shaughnessy Honorable Mention (2025) for the book, “Black Immigrant Literacies.”
Current Undertakings
Dr. Smith continues to undertake national and international initiatives both independently and collaboratively that extend her research program. She served recently as USF Principal Investigator (with Dr. S. Joel Warrican: UWI PI) of the USAID-funded RISE Caribbean initiative, coordinating the 2023 RISE Caribbean conference at USF and functioning as Co-Founder of the RISE Caribbean Educational Research Center (CERC). This initiative was a collaboration between USF and the University of the West Indies Cave Hill (2021-2024).
Cultivating New Imaginaries
Dr. Smith is re-envisioning her research agenda to integrate new technologies/literacies into one line of my research; psychological, health, and social adjustment into another; and family and financial literacies into a third. This re-envisioning is meant to focus on intersectionalies surrounding languaging and semiotizing as pathways to flourishing. Already, one of the initiatives on which she has been invited to work considers how attention to the racialization of language and semiotics can support Black youth suicide prevention (National Institutes of Health: NIH).
As a Saint Lucian American scholar-mother-educator, Dr. Smith continues to extend her research on Black immigrant Englishes beyond the US and Caribbean to Africa and Britain. She accepted an invitation to join the World Literacy Foundation Taskforce (2023) and has served as a member of UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab (2022-). Dr. Smith remains deeply thrilled and excited about using innovations from Black immigrant literacies to support transraciolinguistic justice for all. Her insights are accessible via the YouTube Channel, Black Immigrant Literacies.
Patriann Smith, Ph.D. 