Dr. Sarah Smiley was recently named Kent State University at Salem’s newest Assistant Professor of Geography. Dr. Smiley comes to Kent State Salem from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was an assistant professor in the Department of History and Geography. Prior to this appointment Smiley was a graduate teaching assistant in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Kansas.

Dr. Smiley earned her Ph.D. in Geography from The University of Kansas in 2007. Her specializations include Cultural Geography, Urban Geography and Sub-Saharan Africa. Smiley’s dissertation was titled “Patterns of Urban Life and Urban Segregation in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.” She also earned her Masters of Art from The University of Kansas. Her master’s thesis was titled “Ugandan, NGO, and IFI Perspectives Toward the HIPC Debt Relief Initiative.”

She also earned her Bachelor’s of Art in Geography with high honors in 2000 from The University of Cincinnati. Dr. Smiley’s Senior Capstone was titled “Effects of the HIPC Debt Relief Initiative on the External Debt of Uganda.”

In addition to her degrees, Dr. Smiley has published numerous works, edited special issues and reviewed several books. She has received more than $160,000 in grant monies including a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in 2005 and a Fulbright-Hays Advanced Kiswahili Group Project Abroad Fellowship the year before. Between 2001 and 2005 Dr. Smiley received the Madison and Lila Self Graduate Doctoral Fellowship for $125,000. She has also presented at various conferences including the National Meeting of the Association of American Geographers and given invited lectures at James Madison and Baylor Universities.

Dr. Smiley is affiliated with the Association of American Geographers, the African Studies Association, the Tanzanian Studies Association, the Africa Specialty Group, the Cultural Geography Specialty Group and the Historical Geography Specialty Group.

She has an intermediate understanding of Kiswahili and a basic knowledge of German.