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Evan Smith

Evan Smith's headshot

Evan Smith

  • Advisory Board Member and 2022–23 Distinguished Pracitioner Fellow, UVA's Karsh Institute of Democracy

  • Managing Director of Events, The Atlantic

  • Co-founder, The Texas Tribune

Evan Smith is managing director of events at The Atlantic, overseeing live journalism and other public programming produced from coast to coast and border to border by the award-winning 169-year-old magazine. He’s also a senior advisor at Emerson Collective, working closely with journalists and funders around the country to support local news. Previously he spent more than thirteen years at The Texas Tribune, which he co-founded and led as CEO, and nearly eighteen years at Texas Monthly, including nine years as editor in chief and a year as president. Evan is the host of “Overheard with Evan Smith,” a weekly half-hour interview program that airs on PBS stations everywhere. A native of New York, he's a graduate of Hamilton College, which awarded him an honorary degree in 2023, and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, which inducted him into its Hall of Achievement in 2006.