Kristen C. Smith has a decade-old education career that has seen her in Head Start classrooms, high schools and model college-in-prison programs.

This passion first intersected with her interest in gender equity, which led to her narrative about Black girls in education being published in the hip-hop informed social justice anthology, Wish to Live: The Hip-Hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader. Then, Ms. Smith dove head first into education policy, co-founding the South Louisiana Coalition for Education (SLCE) with Leadership for Educational Equity.

She has served as a policy advisor fellow in the office of policy and governmental affairs at the Louisiana Department of Education, a congressional intern with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington, DC, a national advisory board member with Advance Illinois and was appointed to Mayor President of the City of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish Sharon Weston Broome’s transition team on education. Currently she serves on Teach for America – South Louisiana’s Government Relations Committee and CHANGE’s executive council, a nonprofit structured to empower disenfranchised youth and families.

Smith holds a BA in History, and an EdM in Education Policy Studies, Organization and Leadership from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Currently, she is a Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar, earning a Doctor of Education in Diversity & Equity in Education (DE) at her alma mater. She lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where she is also the proud co-owner of Tre’s Street kitchen, a mobile food truck bringing Midwest Flair to Southern cuisine.