R. Drew Smith
Role: Panelist
Affiliation: Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Title: [187]
Session Name: Thursday Luncheon
Bio:
R. Drew Smith
R. Drew Smith is a political scientist and clergyman whose leadership and scholarship
have been positioned at intersections of faith, social witness, and community
engagement. He has focused on public sector and faith sector responses to spiritual,
social developmental, economic, educational, racial justice, and public health urgencies
facing urban communities across the U.S. and in several African contexts.
Currently Dr. Smith is the Henry L. Hillman Professor of Urban Ministry at Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary and also served as director of its Metro-Urban Institute. He
previously held faculty appointments at Indiana University and Butler University; and
held visiting faculty appointments at Case Western Reserve University, University of
Virginia, and Emory University and Fulbright professor appointments at University of
Pretoria in South Africa and Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Cameroon.
Additionally, he served as the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at the Morehouse College
Leadership Center, and as the Director of the Center for the Church and Black
Experience at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Dr. Smith earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Indiana University, a
Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political
Science from Yale University. He has published widely, having written more than eighty
articles and chapters and having edited ten research volumes on religion and public life
including, most recently, a volume titled Racialized Health, COVID-19, and Religious
Responses: Black Atlantic Contexts and Perspectives. He has received many honors and
awards for his academic leadership, including selection in 2002 as an Emerging Leaders
Fellow by a Duke University/University of Cape Town program on Leadership and
Public Values, and selection in 2008 by the Governor of Indiana for a Governor’s Black
Expo Leadership award.
