Patriann Smith

Dr. Patriann Smith, a Saint Lucian American, is an international expert on language and literacy and Associate Dean of Faculty Success and Excellence in the College of Education at the University of South Florida.

Dr. Smith holds the position of Professor and her extensive academic journey includes a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, with a concentration in Literacy Studies specializing in Multilingual Education, and an MEd in Reading Education. She also holds a BSc in Elementary Education, an AA in Elementary Teacher Training, and a K-20 Reading Specialist certification. With a diverse career, and as a former K-12 teacher in Saint Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago, she has served in professorial roles across various prestigious institutions, including the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

As a transnational scholar with decades of educational experience across the Caribbean and the United States, Dr. Smith's research focuses on the intersection of race, language, and immigration, with an emphasis on transculturally, transracially, and translinguistically responsive literacy and assessment practices. Her dedication to diversity and equity is evident through her leadership roles and active involvement in academic organizations. Specifically, she draws from the Black Englishes and from the Black literacies and languaging of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, other Black immigrants in the United States (i.e., African), and Black American students (i.e., African-American) to propose solutions that advance racial and linguistic justice in literacy. She also explores the Englishes of Black populations in their English-speaking Caribbean locales to make recommendations for advancing literacy teaching across local, national, and international boundaries that reinscribe multilingual, multicultural, and multiracial realities as the foundation for English reading and literacy.

Based primarily on research conducted with students in the United States, Dr. Smith’s proposed solutions include ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’, ‘translanguaging with Englishes,’ ‘raciosemiotic architecture’, and the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’ to clarify how literacy can be re-envisioned and taught to all students (e.g., monolingual, bilingual, multilingual students) in classrooms. 

Her research expertise, reflecting numerous publications, is reflected in journals such as The Reading Teacher, Reading Research Quarterly, American Educational Research Journal, International Multilingual Research Journal, Action in Teacher Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, Research in Comparative and International Education, and Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Her scholarship also appears in national and international volumes.

Dr. Smith is co-author with Drs. Arlette Willis and Gwendolyn McMillon, of the book, "Affirming Black Students' Lives and Literacies: Bearing Witness" (2022) and author of the book, “Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom” (2023), both published by Teachers College Press. She is also co-editor with Drs. Vaughn Watson and Michelle Knight-Manuel of the book, “Educating African Immigrant Youth: Schooling and Civic Engagement in K–12 Schools” (2024), also published by Teachers College Press, and author of the book, “Literacies of Migration: Translanguaging Imaginaries of Innocence” (2024) published by Cambridge University Press.

As a globally recognized educational, inspirational, and motivational keynote speaker, Professor Smith's research expertise has resulted in numerous invited and refereed speaking engagements that span a broad range of universities, organizations, countries, and communities, both within and beyond the United States. Among these are the United Nations (UN), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans, World Literacy Foundation (WLF), Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Oxford University, Queen’s University (Belfast), University of Calgary, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Washington Seattle, University of Pennsylvania, University of Miami, University of the Southern Caribbean, and the University of the West Indies (UWI) Saint Augustine.

Professor Smith is the recipient of numerous awards including the International Literacy Association’s Reading Hall of Fame Emerging Scholar Award (ILA RHOF: 2013), American Educational Research Association’s Language and Social Processes Emerging Scholar Award (AERA LSP: 2015); Literacy Research Association’s Scholars of color Transitioning into Academic Research Institutions Award (LRA STAR: 2017);  TTU President’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2017);  TTU President’s Excellence in Diversity Award (2018); USF’s Outstanding Research Achievement Award (2021); USF’s Global Excellence in Research Award (2022); and USF’s Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Award (2024).

With an extensive history of service across the academy and profession including associations such as AERA, ILA, TESOL, and NCTE, Dr. Smith has served recently on the World Literacy Foundation (WLF) Task Force and as a member of the Executive and Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association (LRA). She has served as USF PI with UWI PI, Dr. S. Joel Warrrican, of the USAID-funded “RISE Caribbean” grant, through which she has functioned as a Co-Founder of the Caribbean Educational Research Center (CERC) — a center designed to enhance research-based decision-making across the Caribbean. She serves currently as a member of the UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab and is the newly elected Vice-President of LRA (2024-2025).

An entrepreneurial, creative, vibrant, visionary, and free spirit, Patriann is a transnational multilingual speaker of Saint Lucian French Creole, the founder of Espoir de Oryanaut, and mother to a beautiful daughter. She enjoys nature, hiking, comedy, theatre, traveling, dancing, reggae, rural island life, and the water.