Quesenberry Smith, a native of Blacksburg, VA, has instructed English and American Literature, creative writing, composition, and developmental reading and writing since 2009. In 2013, she joined the faculty at VMI where she teaches the first-year courses in writing and rhetoric. She earned a B.A. in biology and a B.A. in English literature in 1985 from Hollins University and returned a fifth year to complete an M.A. in English literature and creative writing in 1986. In 2024, she obtained a Ph.D. at Virginia Tech where she studied with Bradley Bowen, Ph.D., Sheila Carter Todd, Ph.D., John Wells, Ph.D., and other writing, rhetoric, and STEM education scholars. Her doctoral research investigated the nature and perceptions of undergraduate students’ short critical reflective writing within their hands-on technology and engineering design-based learning in three capstone classes in computer and information sciences at VMI. After earning her Ph.D., she was awarded a National Security Agency Grant at VMI. This grant supported the design of a collaborative research project where she mentored two cadets’ undergraduate research and writing about technology, engineering, and cybersecurity innovations which resulted in a systematic literature review about ways educators use “cyber-tools” to support critical reflective writing within technology and engineering problem-solving. Cadet Stephen Ralis and Smith presented “Cyber-tools for Critical Reflection during Technology and Engineering Design Based Problem Solving: A Systematic Review of Techno-Constructivist Approaches” at the Writing Education across Borders Conference (WEAB) in Salt Lake City, UT, on September 21, 2024. Smith continues to research the ways cyber-tools, such as AI and generative AI, might support critical reflection and critical reflective writing during hands-on design- and project-based initiatives.
Smith has written in many genres. She is especially interested in the interplay between science, technology, and creative writing. As a poet and essayist, she is published in literary magazines and online journals. In November 2024, she was appointed for a two-year term as Virginia’s Poet Laureate. In August 2025, she was awarded one of twenty-three Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships. As a result of this award, she directs Perseverance and Resilience, a civic project that supports American veterans and their communities through poetry. Smith and her husband, Douglas N. Smith, also a faculty member at VMI, share several creative film and screenwriting projects, including Between Two Fires, an award-winning documentary about the forced repatriation of Soviet citizens after World War II; a multi-platform project which includes a graphic novel and screenplay entitled Eagle in the Snow; and a film project in development entitled “Daughter of the Stars,” set in the Shenandoah Parkway where private properties were seized by eminent domain for the park land. Smith and her husband live at the foot of House Mountain in Kerrs Creek, where they have raised their ten children.