Graduate Student Bios

Sydney Smith is a doctoral student specializing in African American History and Women’s and Gender History with a Certificate in Public Humanities. Her current research explores the activism, entrepreneurship, and diasporic politics of Black bookstores during the twentieth century. Sydney is a Graduate Fellow for the Black Bibliography Project, a collaborative digital humanities project between Rutgers and Yale University, and serves as the Co-Convener for the Interpreting American History Lecture Series. She also serves as the Website Coordinator for The Unfinished Conversations Series at the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. She received her A.B. in Africana Studies and Political Science from Brown University in 2022.