Katie Smart: Publicist and Exhibits Coordinator at Duke University Press

Katie Smart, Class of 2010

BA in History from SUNY Geneseo and MA in History from the University of Houston

I am a publicist and exhibits coordinator for journals at Duke University Press, a non-profit publisher of academic books and journals. I operate the publicity program for over fifty academic journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. I also manage the presence of our journals at academic conferences, which sometimes includes event planning for special receptions.

In my job, I need to be able to quickly understand the chief arguments of an article or what makes a journal issue different from previously published collections of its kind. Additionally, I am tasked with distilling these academic works into different iterations for different audiences: 140 characters for a tweet, a blog post that will pique the interest of a reader not familiar with that subject, or one to two sentences for a conference program advertisement. The critical reading and writing skills I learned and honed through my years of studying history are indispensable to me now.

I do not have a degree in sales or marketing, though that is my department here at the Press. I do, however, have a great understanding of what professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students want and need from their academic content and how they prefer to access it, stay connected with Duke University Press, and grow their knowledge in new and exciting ways, which is crucial to the survival of university presses.