Shelly Porter Smith is a professor of nursing and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Advanced Practice Program Director for the MSN program at the UVA School of Nursing. She earned both a BSN and a DNP from UVA School of Nursing and is a member of the University's distinguished Raven Society.

Prior to her appointment at UVA, Smith worked at VCU School of Nursing where she was a clinical associate professor and served as director of nursing graduate programs overall. As a Translational Research Fellow in Residence at VCU, Smith mentored faculty scholars in legislative advocacy, proposal and grant writing, and authoring policy briefs and white papers.

A long-time preceptor to UVA nurse practitioner master's students, and part of the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority’s nursing preceptor incentive program work group, Smith understands well the importance of nursing schools’ ability to build and maintain strong clinical partnerships with health systems around the Commonwealth that augment students’ education and experience. In 2022, she was appointed by Gov. Youngkin to Virginia's Health Care Workforce Development Authority board.

A fierce advocate for nurse practitioner autonomy, Smith has frequently lent her voice and expertise at the Virginia General Assembly, providing expert testimony during legislative sessions, at caucus, subcommittee, and committee meetings, and, ultimately, helped shape House Bills 793, HB 1600, and Senate Bill 170.

Smith became an American Academy of Nursing Fellow in ’21, was a Distinguished Policy Fellow for the National Academy of Practice, a Wilder School of Government & Public Policy Translational Research Fellow, and a member of the AACN’s Leadership for Academic Nursing Program in 2016. She’s earned multiple awards, too, including an NP State Excellence Award from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in 2021, Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners’ (VCNP) Distinguished NP Award in 2019, and a Distinguished Nurse Practitioner Award from the Richmond chapter of the VCNP.