Professor Smith is Pro Vice-Chancellor Maori with responsibilities for Maori development at the University of Waikato as well as Dean of the School of Maori and Pacific Development and a professor of Education and Maori Development.

Professor Smith has an academic background in education and research and has a long career as an inter-disciplinary scholar. She is well known for her publications, public speaking and research leadership.

Her 1998 book Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples has become a seminal text in indigenous studies. Her other publications canvass a wide range of academic disciplines.

She has worked with a number of Maori scholars most notably her husband Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith. Professor Smith has served on a number of New Zealand's national bodies.

She has been President of NZARE the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, a member of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission, a member of the Health Research Council and Chair of the Maori Health Committee, Chair of the Social Sciences Panel of the Marsden Council and member of the Constitutional Review Panel.

She has also been active in establishing Maori educational initiatives from early childhood to higher education, was an inaugural co-Director of the Maori Research Centre of Excellence, Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga, and is currently the Director of the Te Kotahi Research Institute at the University of Waikato.

Linda is a daughter, a sister and cousin, a mother and aunt and a grandmother in an extended family.