Ella Bell Smith

Ella Smith is a professor of business administration at Tuck and works in the field of organizational behavior. She has previously served on the faculties of Belk College of Business Administration, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale's School of Management and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The research interests of Professor Smith focus on the career and life histories of professional African-American and European-American women. She is currently inquiring into issues of work/life balance. She has served as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies and to many public institutions. Her scholarly works have been reported in many top publications, and her book, Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity, has been widely acclaimed.

Current Research Topics

• Race, gender, and social class in organizations
• Organizational change

Professional Activities

Academic positions

• Tuck School of Business, 2000–present
• Associate Professor, Belk College of Business Administration, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1996
• Assistant Professor, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992–96
• Visiting Professor, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991–92
• Research Fellow, School of Organization and Management, Yale University, 1990–91
• Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1990–91
• Faculty, Summer Institute, Smith College, 1988–90
• Assistant Professor, School of Organization and Management, Yale University, 1986–90

Nonacademic positions

• Founder and President, ASCENT: Leading Multicultural Women to the Top, 2004–present
• President, Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, 1999–2001 

Board memberships

• Advisory Board Member, National Women’s Leadership Summit, The White House Project, 2005
• Advisory Board Chairperson, Best Companies for Women of Color, Working Mother Media, 2002–05;

Editorial positions

• Journal of Applied Behavior Science, 2002–present

Awards

• Compass Award, Women's Leadership Exchange, 2005
• Legacy of Leadership Award, Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, 2005; McGregor Award for Best Paper, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2001
• Bunting Fellow, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1993–94
• American Sociological Minority Fellowship, American Sociological Association, 1983–86

Selected Publications

• Career GPS: Women's Strategies for Navigating the New Corporate Landscape, HarperCollins, 2010
• With D. Meyerson, S. Nkomo, and M. Scully, "Interpreting Silence and Voice in the Workplace: A Conversation About Tempered Radicalism Among Black and White Women Researchers," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 39(12), 2003
• Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity, Harvard Business School Press, 2001
• "What Does It Mean to Be an Intellectual Woman? A Comparative Essay," Journal of Management Inquiry, 9(2), 2000
• "Postcards from the Borderlands: Building a Career from the Outside/Within," Journal of Career Development, 1999
• "Armoring: Learning to Withstand Racial Oppression," Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 2, 1999
• "Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill: Comment on a Personal Reflection," Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 28, 1992
• "The Bicultural Life Experience of Career-Oriented Black Women," Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11(6), 1990