Stephanie Smith is chief curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Previously, she served as deputy director and chief curator at the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago. She also serves as an affiliate member of the University of Chicago's Department of Visual Arts, a founding member of its Open Practice Committee, and as a contributing editor at the international art journal Afterall. Smith held previous curatorial positions at Rice University, where she earned her M.A. in art history, and at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston.
Smith's work focuses on socially engaged public practice and on issues of art and sustainability, most notably in the exhibitions and publications Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art (2005), Heartland (2009), and Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art (2012). She has written for the international contemporary art journal Parkett and she is a regular contributor to Afterall. She was a Center exhibitions panelist in 2011.