Amy Erica Smith is associate professor of political science at Iowa State University. Smith's research has attracted funding from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright, Mellon, and Templeton, and the Award for Early Achievement in Research at Iowa State University. Her work on democracy in developing countries has appeared in top political science journals and in the Portuguese-language book, Legitimidade e qualidade da democracia no Brasil: Uma visão da cidadania (2011; with Lucio Rennó, Matthew Layton, and Frederico Batista Pereira).