Shardé McNeil Smith, Ph.D., (she/her) is a professor of human development and family studies in the University of Illinois College of ACES. Her research focuses on the mental, behavioral, and relational effects of racism and discrimination within Black/African American families, particularly among couples and parent-child subsystems. Her work provides empirical evidence and theoretical models on psychosocial stress and resiliency among African Americans, emphasizing racism and racial discrimination as part of their collective lived experience. Using family stress, resiliency, and intersectionality frameworks, Prof. McNeil Smith investigates how racism-related stress is transmitted and managed within Black families. She employs innovative data analytic techniques like actor-partner interdependence modeling (APIM) to separate the independent and interdependent aspects of family members' experiences with racial discrimination.
Additionally, Prof. McNeil Smith co-developed the Community Healing and Resistance through Storytelling (C-HeARTS) framework, which addresses racial trauma at the community level through three culturally-informed psychological dimensions: connectedness, collective memory, and critical consciousness. This model, informed by focus groups, digital stories, and community-based meetings, highlights the role of communities in addressing racial trauma at individual, family, and community levels. Prof. McNeil Smith has been the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Investigator (Co-I) on several university-funded grants and has led or collaborated on numerous peer-reviewed publications, significantly advancing our understanding of the effects of racial discrimination on African Americans and their families.
Prof. McNeil Smith has also served as a mentor to four scholars through the Community Academic Scholars Program, where she has worked with Driven to Reach Excellence and Academic Achievement for Males (DREAAM) to offer undergraduates opportunities to implement programs to equip young people with skills and resources they can use to prevent community violence and to promote positive racial identity development, social connectedness, health, and educational achievement. Most recently, two undergraduate scholars were able to contribute to the design of a community strengths assessment (CSA) on the strengths and needs of Black youth and families in Champaign and Urbana.
Celina Trujillo, Ph.D., IHSI’s Research Development Manager for Community-Academic Partnerships who has worked with Prof. McNeil Smith over the past year, admires the researcher’s commitment to community and student impact. “It is always a pleasure to work with Shardé. Over the years, she has been a very strong and invested mentor, helping our Community-Academic Scholars to understand the importance of community-engaged research. More recently, I have gotten to work with her on several impactful grant proposals. I am excited to continue to collaborate with her through her affiliation,” Dr. Trujillo said.
Can you describe a goal you are currently pursuing?
One goal I am currently pursuing is collecting data that will allow me to test assumptions and processes of the Sociocultural Family Stress (SFS) model, a framework that I co-developed focused on the experiences of African American families. The SFS model posits that African Americans face unique stressors due to sociocultural factors, which impact family dynamics and individual well-being. To move toward that goal, I am collecting data from a sample of African American/Black couples. With these new data, I will be able to capture more of the nuances and processes that may be occurring within and between Black families, providing a more comprehensive understanding of their experiences and validating the SFS model.
An additional but related goal is focused on developing a Profile of Champaign County Black Residents. This profile will be a comprehensive description of the needs, characteristics, and resources of Black residents in Champaign County. An aspect of this profile includes a Black community strengths assessment in collaboration with Tracy Dace from DREAAM and Celina Trujillo from IHSI. This assessment will present a counternarrative to any deficit-perspectives of Black residents and become a living document that showcases the richness of resources and events available in Champaign County.
How has the focus of your research changed or evolved since you first started in the field?
My research has evolved in a few different ways. When I first started, I focused primarily on the effects of interpersonal experiences of racial discrimination on Black families. This work allowed me to explore how racial discrimination experienced by Black parents, couples, and youth impacted their own and their family members’ mental health. Through my research, I was able to identify the ways in which racial discrimination is transmitted and managed within a family context to include how parents teach children how to cope with racism and the resilience-promoting capabilities of romantic partners supporting one another when experiencing racial discrimination. However, racism is multidimensional and operates at many levels, so I am expanding my research to include the effects of other types of racism on family functioning such as structural racism and appropriated racialized oppression (i.e., internalized racism). I have also expanded my research program to include relationship health outcomes (e.g., satisfaction, commitment, conflict) to understand how intimate partnerships are influenced by both racial discrimination and structural racism dimensions (e.g., county-level income inequality, incarceration rates, residential segregation).
How is most of your research funded? Do you have any advice for working with these sponsors?
Most of my research is funded by internal mechanisms within the university and Hatch funding through the US Department of Agriculture. I currently have two research projects funded through the Center for Social and Behavioral Sciences (CSBS) and the Campus Research Board. These sponsors have been instrumental, especially since it can be extremely difficult to get my work funded through other avenues – even more so in the current federal climate. My advice for working with these sponsors is to understand their priorities and scope for funding, seek feedback, and have a clear pathway for an external grant submission. Also, many of these internal mechanisms provide support for future external grant opportunities so I also suggest building relationships with members of the unit (e.g., IHSI, CSBS, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation) who can review drafts of your proposal.
What is something you want your colleagues to know about you or your research?
I would like my colleagues to be mindful of the multifaceted nature of racism and its implications beyond the individual. These experiences can reverberate throughout marginalized families and these families must find ways to navigate what scholars refer to as “mundane, extreme, environmental, stress” on a daily basis. Also, relationship health is an important part of overall well-being and to date we know little about how racism in all of its various forms impacts this aspect of health. Furthermore, there are many strengths within Black families and communities that get overlooked. Black families have a history of resilience, rooted in strong family bonds and a deep sense of community, which are used to overcome systemic barriers. Doing this work is critical if we are to comprehensively address existing health disparities.