Smith, Barbara Herrnstein.

After studying biology, experimental psychology and philosophy at City College of New York, Smith attended Brandeis University, receiving BA and Ph. D. degrees in English literature. She subsequently taught at Bennington College and at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1987, Smith joined the faculty of Duke University, where she is currently also Braxton Craven Professor of Comparative Literature and English and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory. Smith is also Professor of English at Brown University.

Smith's publications, which reflect her continuing interdisciplinary interests, include Poetic Closure (1968), Contingencies of Value (1988), Belief and Resistance: Dynamics of Contemporary Intellectual Controversy (1997), Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth and the Human (2006), and Natural Reflections: Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion (2009). Smith's research is largely theoretical and interdisciplinary. Her recent work concerns 20th-century developments in epistemology and cognitive science, intellectual and institutional relations between the sciences and the humanities, and contemporary issues involving science and religion.

Smith was elected president of the MLA in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Biography taken from: The Directory of Research and Researchers at Brown University

From the guide to the Barbara Herrnstein Smith papers, Smith (Barbara Herrnstein) papers, 1969-1986, (bulk 1970-1972), (Brown University Library Special Collections)