Candis Watts Smith

Dr. Candis Watts Smith is a Professor of Political Science at Duke University. She received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University. Professor Smith’s expertise highlights the role race and ethnicity in shaping the American political landscape. Her research agenda illuminates the ways in which demographic dynamics influence U.S. citizens’ and denizens’ understanding of their own identity, their political attitudes, and their policy preferences. She is the author of Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Identity (NYU Press, 2014), and the co-author of Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making Black Lives Matter (NYU Press, 2019) as well as Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2020). She is the co-editor of Black Politics in Transition: Immigration, Suburbanization, and Gentrification (Routledge, 2019). More information about Dr. Smith can be found here.