Phillip A. Smith, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership, Administration and Policy (ELAP) within the Graduate School of Education (GSE) at Fordham University. Dr Smith joins Fordham from Teachers College, Columbia University where he completed his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Black Education Research Collective (BERC) at Teachers College, Columbia University. His dissertation entitled, “Leading While Black and Male: A Phenomenology of Black Male School Leadership” https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-kc0x-w079, was awarded the Division A (administration, organization & leadership) Outstanding Dissertation Award, and the Division G (social context of education) Distinguished Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA).Smith’s research explores the intersection of race and gender in education leadership, towards improving diversity and representation across the leadership workforce. Smith examines a phenomenon of Black educational leadership. The research and work aims to develop a conceptual framework and model for Black educational leadership, and Black leadership epistemology that is located in a theory of knowledge grounded in the social and historical context of the Black experience, Black intellectual thought, theology, faith and spirituality, African-centered philosophies, community and social justice leadership.Smith’s work on Black male school leaders in the U.S., U.K., and the Caribbean, and on critical educational leadership has been published in the Journal of School Leadership, Leadership & Policy in Schools, Urban Education Research and Policy Annuals, New Prairie Press, and Caribbean Educational Research Journal, with selected book chapters published by The University of Buckingham Press, Routledge, and Information Age Publishing.Professionally, he has worked across the range of education: early years – secondary (PK-12) education, community, further, higher, and adult education both in the U.K., and the U.S. This has been in a variety of political, leadership and management, organizational, decision-making, academic and research contexts.