Tracy K. Smith was appointed director of the Program in Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University in New Jersey. Professor Smith has taught creative writing at the university since 2005. Earlier, she taught at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University.
Professor Smith is the author of three collections of poetry, including Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011), which won the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of the memoir Ordinary Light (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).
A native of Massachusetts, Smith was raised in northern California. She returned East to earn a bachelor’s degree at Harvard University and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing at Columbia University.