Kimberly Smith is a political scientist who studies environmental ethics, policy, and law. Her research focuses on the development of the American “green state”: the evolution of our collective capacity to manage complex socioecological systems and to achieve meaningful relationships with the natural world. She has published on American agrarianism, African American environmental thought, animal policy, and the history of environmental law. She taught in the political science department and environmental studies program at Carleton College for over two decades before coming to the University of Michigan.