Malissa Smith, 67, is a retired civil servant who served as the Agency Chief Contracting Officer for the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. An amateur boxer, Malissa trains at the world-famous Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. Malissa wrote A History of Women’s Boxing, the definitive history of female boxers.

Malissa is a Founding Board Member of The International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame and a member of the Women’s Boxing Rating Committee, Ring Magazine. Her FOURTH ACT includes her own continued boxing, more writing, and becoming a caretaker for her husband who lives with dementia.

What exploration looks like when you have the Explorer gene. When you cross multiple new frontiers while in your 40s. When you unexpectedly become a global public figure in the world of female boxing. How boxing unleashed an expansive sense of Self.

www.girlboxing.org