Allison Smith was born in Manassas, Virginia in 1972. She received a BA in psychology from The New School for Social Research, a BFA in fine arts from Parsons School of Design, and an MFA in sculpture from the Yale University School of Art. She also participated in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. She lived in New York City from 1990 until 2008 when she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to join the faculty of California College of the Arts, where until recently she was Associate Professor and Chair of the Sculpture Program. In 2017 Smith joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University School of Art as Associate Professor of Art in the area of Sculpture, Installation, and Site-Work. Recent and ongoing projects include Common Goods produced with the Cambridge Arts Council and shown at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Models for a System a collaboration with Christina Zetterlund at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, and Be Not Still at DiRosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa, California.