Dr. Smylie works in partnership with First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous communities, knowledge keepers, health services, and policymakers across Canada. Tangible, Indigenous community impacts of Dr. Smylie’s work include: contributing to the development of the Toronto Birth Centre which incorporates Indigenous knowledge and practice into its day-to-day operations; substantive funding increases for Dedwadadehsnye’s Health Access Centre following the release of the Our Health Counts health assessment report; and preservation and application of Indigenous oral history knowledge in the area of reproductive, child and family health (i.e. first Métis baby book; nine documentary films).

Dr. Smylie currently holds a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Applied Public Health Research Chair in Indigenous Health Knowledge and Information, and is the first senior researcher to receive a CIHR Foundation Grant focused on Indigenous health research. Her outstanding accomplishments have been recognized with a National Aboriginal Achievement/Indspire Award and a Trailblazer award in Population and Public Health. She was named a Top 20 Pioneer of Family Medicine Research by the Canadian College of Family Physicians in 2015.

Dr. Smylie developed and directs the Well Living House, a unique and a highly productive Indigenous health research unit housed at MAP. She is a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, a scientist with the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an adjunct scientist at ICES and an associate professor at the University of Toronto, Dalla Lana School of Public Health with a cross-appointment to Family and Community Medicine. She continues part-time clinical work as a consulting family physician at Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto.