Stacy L. Smith, Ph.D. is the foremost disrupter of inequality in the entertainment industry and a 2025
recipient of the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award. Dr. Smith is the Founder of the USC
Annenberg Inclusion Initiative (AII), the leading global think tank studying issues of inequality in
entertainment. Dr. Smith’s groundbreaking research examines inclusion of gender, race/ethnicity, the
LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities and mental health in storytelling across film, TV and digital
platforms. The Initiative releases analyses of top-grossing films (on screen, behind the camera, executive
ranks), popular music (artists, songwriters, producers), and impediments facing women and individuals
from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in the director’s chair. The Initiative also performs
economic analyses to investigate the relationship between inclusion and financial performance. Dr.
Smith’s work is covered regularly in popular press outlets including The New York Times, Los Angeles
Times, CBS This Morning, NPR, and many others.
Dr. Smith has authored over 150 book chapters, articles, and reports, along with over 50 studies at the
Annenberg Inclusion Initiative on various aspects of entertainment. Most recently, Dr. Smith was the
force behind The Inclusion List, a data-driven ranking of the most inclusive films, companies, and
producers from 2019 to 2022. In addition to being a prolific writer, Dr. Smith speaks routinely on issues
of inequality in the media. Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 1 million times, and she has spoken
multiple times at the United Nations, the White House, Sundance Film Festival, and the Toronto Film
Festival. She also testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Other speaking engagements include
but are not limited to Promax, the Bloomberg Equality Summit, the Milken Global Conference, and
LunaFest. Dr. Smith’s work was also the basis for the docuseries, 4%: Film’s Gender Problem, she
appears in the documentary Half the Picture, and is an Executive Producer of the documentary
Uncharted, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Dr. Smith also creates solutions to increase representation in media. In 2010, she devised and later
coauthored the inclusion rider, a contractual clause that guarantees the representation of
underrepresented groups in entertainment projects. In 2018, Dr. Smith worked with Brie Larson to
advocate for greater access and opportunity for underrepresented film critics at notable film festivals. In
2019, Dr. Smith partnered with TIME’S UP to launch the 4% challenge, which asked Hollywood industry
members to work with a female film director in the following eighteen months; the challenge was
accepted by more than 120 notable creatives and 7 major companies. Dr. Smith served on the Recording
Academy Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion following the release of the Annenberg Inclusion
Initiative’s inaugural study on the music industry and is Founding Board Member of She Is The Music,
and the TIME’S UP Global Leadership Board. LA Weekly named Dr. Smith the most influential person in
Los Angeles in 2015. In 2019, the Hollywood Reporter named her one of 50 Agents of Change, and in
2021 Billboard listed Dr. Smith as an industry Change Agent.