Rochelle D. Smith, M.S., (she/her) is the second vice president of DICE. She is an accomplished diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practitioner and senior-level administrator in higher education, with more than 24 years of experience. Smith earned her Master of Science degree in health behavior research from Washington University School of Medicine, a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Chicago State University, and certification in executive leadership from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Smith has devoted much of her career to tackling complex institutional challenges with a data-driven and research-based approach. Making campuses more welcoming for people from backgrounds historically underrepresented in higher education has been one of her priorities. Smith’s previous position was the inaugural associate dean of diversity and inclusion and associate chief diversity officer at the Yale School of Medicine.
Prior to joining Yale, Rochelle worked for 20 years at Washington University here in St. Louis, where she had been assistant provost for diversity initiatives. Rochelle founded the Washington University Diversity Pipeline Consortium for STEM, and her experience also included co-designing two faculty-of-color retention programs at Washington University that resulted in a record number of these faculty receiving tenure. In addition, she led the M.D./Ph.D. diversity effort and founded three student affinity groups at the university.
At the Yale School of Medicine, Rochelle provided strategic direction to the Dean on diversity, equity and inclusion; equal opportunity; discrimination and harassment; and retaliation. She helped address inquiries and concerns on those same issues raised by Yale community members.