About Dr. Smart
Julie Smart, Ph.D. was Professor in the Rehabilitation Counseling program at Utah State University for 24 years, including 10 years as program director. U. S. News and World Report has ranked USU’s Rehabilitation Counseling as 6th in the nation. Dr. Smart has written extensively about ethnic, racial, and linguistic minority individuals with disabilities in academic Rehabilitation and general counseling journals. She has published three books which are used in Disability Studies programs and Rehabilitation Counseling programs. These books are Disability, Society, and the Individual (2001, 2007, 2016, and 2024) Disability Throughout the Developmental Lifespan (2012 and 2017) and Disability Definitions, Diagnoses, and Practice Implications: An Introduction for Counselors (2019).
In 1990, Dr. Smart was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship, The Mary E. Switzer award, from the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research. For this fellowship, Dr. Smart translated two rehabilitation instruments into Spanish, The Acceptance of Disability Scale and Client Satisfaction with Rehabilitation Services which allowed her to investigate the relationship between acceptance of disability and the experience of Hispanics clients in the state/federal rehabilitation agency. In 1998, Dr. Smart received the Outstanding New Career in Rehabilitation Education Award and in 2016, she received the Outstanding Career in Rehabilitation Education. Both of these national honors were awarded by the National Council on Rehabilitation Education (NCRE).
For her first career, Dr. Smart was a college instructor of Spanish. Currently, she is professor emeritus and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Two Rehabilitation Counseling professors have written the following about her work:
“Dr. Smart, like all of her other scholarly contributions on disability, has once again written an outstanding book for new and advanced social science students and practicing counselors about working with people with disabilities. . . .This is a must read for undergraduate and graduate students alike across disciplines.”
Irmo Marini, Ph.D., Professor of Rehabilitation Counseling, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
“Dr. Smart is, indeed a disability scholar. Dr. Smart’s passion for the multicultural nature of humanity drives this work.”
Mark A. Stebnicki, Ph.D., Professor, Coordinator of Military and Trauma Programs, Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation, East Carolina University