maurika smutherman

I currently work as an Assistant Professor of Broadcast Media in the Mass Communication Department at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) and a Digital Media and Technology Instructor at Johnston Community College. I describe myself as a Black feminist media studies scholar who uses critical theory and making to explore intersections between communication, culture, race, gender, and technology from a materialist perspective.

My work is guided by the women who came before me — my paternal grandmother, who used every possible opportunity to teach those around her with empathy; my maternal grandmother, whose deep connections to nature and the land inform the way she navigates the world; my mother, whose radical love and boundless creativity taught me how to lead with a Black feminist ethic of care; and my aunts, who showed me how to always remain true to myself no matter the spaces and places I may find myself in. My research is an attempt to make tangible and/or visible the ways Black women and girls produce and engage with technologies under-explored in Western studies of communication and media.

I received my PhD in Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media from North Carolina State University (NCSU). I earned my M.A. in New Media and Global Education from Appalachian State University and my B.A. in mass communications from Winston-Salem State University, where I worked for several years as a consultant in the writing and communication center and as an instructor in the communication and media studies department. I also taught in the communication department at NCSU and worked as the graduate extension assistant in the Digital Media Lab at NCSU Libraries.