Kylie Smith is the Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow for Nursing and the Humanities at Emory University and works with the School of Nursing, the Centre for Ethics, the Centre for Human Health and the College of Arts and Sciences to build collaborations between nursing and the liberal arts. Kylie was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in English and History and a PhD in History from the University of Wollongong in Australia. Before coming to Emory, Kylie worked in the School of Nursing at the University of Wollongong where she researched mental health nursing history and taught reflective practice. Kylie has also worked in multicultural HIV/AIDS health promotion in Sydney, Australia and studied scriptwriting at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. Kylie’s current research explores the development of psychiatric nursing in the US during and after World War II. This research has been supported by a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Association for the History of Nursing. Kylie is currently working on two monographs which trace the origins of nursing knowledge in psychiatry, and the relationship between nurses and race in asylums in the American south east.
Dr. Kylie Smith explores the history of mental health nursing by studying the therapeutic role of nurses. By examining the social and historical context of nursing practice, she highlights the humanities as powerful educational tools that allow one to critically analyze the assumptions and narratives that underpin modern health care practice.