Cherise Smith specializes in American art after 1945, especially as it intersects with the politics of identity, race, and gender. Her book, "Enacting Others: Politics of Identity in Eleanor Antin, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, and Anna Deavere Smith" (2011), examines how identity is negotiated in performance art in which women artists take-on the characteristics and manners of a racial, ethnic, and gender “other”. Her articles have appeared in Art Journal, African Arts, and exposure among other venues. She was awarded the Getty Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Research Fellowship at W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research at Harvard University. She has worked in the curatorial departments of the Art Institute of Chicago, the De Young Museum, and the Saint Louis Art Museum among others institutions.