Zyrashae Smith is a PhD student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education studying college access for minoritized and low-income students. Stemming from her own experiences as a first-generation college student and college access advisor in Baltimore City Public Schools, she examines how institutional structures perpetuate educational inequities by serving as barriers to postsecondary access and enrollment for underrepresented, college-aspiring students. She is a recipient of a 2022 American Education Research Association (AERA) Minority Dissertation Fellowship, the 2022 JHU Jeffery A. Grigg Memorial Award, and a 2021 Johns Hopkins 21 st Century Cities Initiative Award for Doctoral Research on Urban Issues. Along with her doctoral studies, Zyrashae serves as a Graduate Research Assistant for the Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC). She holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Morgan State University and a Master of Science in Educational Studies with a graduate certificate in Urban Education from the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.
