Annabelle Smith
Research Historian
Work at HAI | Legal
Annabelle joined HAI | Legal in November 2021 and is passionate about encouraging the relationship between history, the environment, and the public. As a research historian, she conducts in-depth historical research and supports content development efforts for a variety of legal, corporate, museum, and government clients.
Path to HAI | Legal
Before joining HAI | Legal, Annabelle was a collections assistant at Vermilionville Living History Museum and Folklife park, where she facilitated condition reports and metadata creation on artifacts spanning the 17th–19th century in Acadiana. She temporarily relocated to San Luis Obispo, California, as an Interpretation intern with Hearst San Simeon State Park, where she developed weekly educational programs and an immersive historical hike through the park.
Annabelle earned a master’s degree in public history, graduating summa cum laude, from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2019, focused on environmental history and more specifically, disasters. While in graduate school, she held a variety of assistantships including research assistant to the collections and exhibitions manager at the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, as well as assistant to the University Department of History, working on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant project on the effects of Hurricane Harvey in Louisiana.