Jessica M. Smith, Dean’s Fellow of Earth and Society Programs and professor of anthropology at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, has been named a 2025 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. Smith is the first Mines professor to receive this honor, joining 25 other scholars across the United States.
The Carnegie Fellowship is recognized as the most generous fellowship for book projects in the social sciences and humanities, with a $200,000 award. Smith plans to study the impact of the energy transition on the politics of working Americans, focusing on communities in Gillette, Wyoming and Pueblo, Colo.
Smith, who has a background in studying energy, engineering and public accountability, aims to provide a nuanced portrayal of how these communities are navigating the coal downturn. “I grew up in a coal mining community and have experienced first-hand how frustrating it is when popular and academic diagnoses of the ‘problem’ of blue-collar voters rest on caricatures,” Smith said.
Founded in 2015 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program has distributed over $59 million to support research in the humanities and social sciences. Recipients are expected to produce a book or significant study in their field.
Smith has published extensively on energy transition issues and corporate accountability. She is the author of two books, including “Extracting Accountability: Engineers and Corporate Social Responsibility” and “Mining Coal and Undermining Gender: Rhythms of Work and Family in the American West.” Since joining Mines in 2012, Smith has collaborated with researchers in the energy sector and has contributed to significant projects funded by institutions like the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Smith currently serves as Editor-In-Chief of the journal Engineering Studies and is a member of the National Academies’ Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering. She was named a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Upon receiving the fellowship, Smith expressed her gratitude, stating, “I’m honored to have been selected as an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and to receive support for this research, which is urgent given the speed of the energy transition.” Smith aims to write a book entitled “Rage and Recovery: Navigating Polarization in the (Other) Coal Country,” exploring the contrasting paths of Gillette and Pueblo as the coal market changes.
