About
About Us Partners Contact Grants & Funding
Initiatives
Initiatives Training Platform Global Chairs Local Contexts Scholars Data Equity Incubator Indigenous IP Support Land Acknowledgements
Networks
Networks Science Network Aotearoa Biocultural Labels Working Group IEEE Working Group
Events
Events Speaker Series
Knowledge Center
Blog
maggie-walter-headshot

Vanessa Smith

ENRICH Project Manager 

M.A Candidate, Museum Studies
New York University

Vanessa Smith (she/her) is a Black ally, learner, and BIPOC advocate. Through her work and studies, she strives to critically analyze the legacies and ongoing harm of settler colonialism in the areas of Intellectual Property and cultural heritage. She is interested in intersections of law, art, restitution, and decolonial initiatives that support Indigenous sovereignty.

Vanessa is currently an MA Candidate in the Museum Studies department at NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science. She will begin her legal education toward her JD in the fall of 2023.

Areas of Interest: Material culture, Indigenous sovereignty, land back, repatriation and restitution, technologies of abolition, law and extralegal mechanisms for equity, and advocacy for BIPOC creatives.