Smith is a reporter for the Aspen Institute’s Weave project, an initiative founded by The New York Times’ David Brooks to address the problems of isolation, alienation, and division. At Weave, Smith finds and tells the stories of people who are working to rebuild the social fabric. Between 2013 and 2018, she served as an instructor in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Smith grew up in Montreal, Canada. She graduated from Dartmouth College and earned a masters of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.