Brooke Simler Smith

Brooke Smith is the Director of Public Engagement with Science at The Kavli Foundation. In this role, she works to strengthen the field of public engagement with science and science communications. Brooke is passionate about scientists engaging with the public, and ensuring those who enable scientists to communicate and engage are supported to do so effectively. Brooke’s expertise and experience are rooted in science, science communication, public engagement of science, public policy, journalism, organizational leadership, and fundraising.

Until late 2016, Brooke served as the inaugural Executive Director of COMPASS, a leading non-profit organization dedicated to empowering scientists to be effective communicators and to engage in the public discourse about the environment. Her experiences stem from work in the federal government, as a consultant to federal agencies, as a University-based communication professional, and in the non-profit sector. Brooke frequently writes and speaks about the state and future of public engagement with science field.

She has an M.S. from Oregon State University’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. Brooke serves on the National Caucus for Environmental Legislators Board of Directors and the National Academy of Science’s LabX Advisory Board. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Roundtable on the Public Interfaces of Life Sciences, served on the National Board of Directors for the Surfrider Foundation and Portland’s Forest Park Conservancy, and was a Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow.

_{Updated March 2020.}