Alyson Smith, MS, PA-C

The College of Medical Science welcomed Alyson Smith as an associate professor and director of research and scholarship in the physician assistant (PA) program in 2024. She arrived with more than 23 years of experience in PA education, working most recently as associate professor and director of didactic education for the developing PA program at Hawai’i Pacific University in Honolulu, Hawai’i (2021-2023). She also served as the program’s interim director in 2022.

Previously, Smith served in the Midwestern University College of Health Sciences in Downers Grove, Illinois, from 2001 to 2021, most recently as associate professor in the PA program. Her administrative roles in the PA program at Midwestern included academic coordinator, associate program director, and program director. Smith received the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching and Commitment to Students in 2002, and the Program Director’s Award for Service and Dedication to the PA Program in 2012. She also practiced clinically as a PA in family medicine in Naperville, Illinois, and in pediatrics in Tinley Park and Orland Park, Illinois.

Smith completed an optional post-graduate PA residency program in pediatrics and neonatology through Norwalk Hospital and the Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut in 1997. She earned a master’s degree in physician assistant studies from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in 1994 and a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Illinois in 1992.

Smith has a passion for pediatrics, and is a past president of the Society for Physician Assistants in Pediatrics, a recognized specialty organization of the American Academy of Physician Associates. Her current research interests include childhood obesity and pediatric nutrition, and the prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease precursors in children and adolescents.

She teaches remotely at George Fox, as she lives in suburban Chicago with her family and their sweet rescue pup. In her free time, Smith and her family love to travel, sing, experiment in the kitchen, and spend as much time together outdoors as possible.