Lesley M. Smith

Lesley Smith is Associate Professor in New Century College, and an affiliate faculty member of the Higher Education Program at George Mason University. She studied History at the universities of St. Andrews and Oxford, where she gained her Ph. D. in modern history.

After ten years as a journalist in UK broadcast television, and two years as a freelance video producer & writer, she gained an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University. She joined New Century College, George Mason University's undergraduate integrative studies program, in 1998 and, in 2004, won a George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award.

She divides her time between the critical, cultural, and creative exploration of digital environments, for which she has received several grants from the Technology Across the Curriculum program at George Mason, and the enhancing of teaching and learning in higher education.

Anything that happens on a screen – computer, tv or movie – intrigues her, and she regularly reviews film, dvd and television for popmatters.com, an international journal of cultural criticism. In addition, she had edited six volumes of historical essays, and written, researched or produced more than thirty single-issue documentaries and five, 12-part historical documentary series for broadcast television.

She is co-editor of a forthcoming book on educational innovations at New Century College, edits inventio, a national electronic journal of creative thinking about teaching and learning, and sits on the Advisory Committee of the Center for Teaching Excellence.