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Since taking office after the November 2022 election, Dr. Lamothe’s goal is to bring accountability, balance and civility to the Board. She promises to rely on reliable sources of information when called to make decisions on controversial topics.
She believes in good government and is committed to policy that does the most good for the most people. She will be accessible and responsive to her constituents and is making an effort to keep informed of Board activities.
Dr. Lamothe currently serves on Government Relations, Public Safety and Central Services committees. Dr. Lamothe earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Studio Art from the University of New Hampshire, a Master of Arts in Latin American Literature and Culture from Boston College and her doctorate (PhD) in Contemporary Latin American Literature from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
She’s worked at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville since 2000 as an established lecturer of Spanish. She also worked at SIUE as an assistant professor of Spanish from 1995 to 1998. She’s worked as a visiting instructor of Spanish at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. and at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Since moving to southern Illinois in 1995, Dr. Lamothe’s involvement in the community includes serving on the Citizen Advisory Committee for Edwardsville School District 7, and the executive boards of the Edwardsville Area League of Women Voters, SIUE Non Tenure-Track Faculty Association, and the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis. She also volunteered her time with the Main Street Community Center in Edwardsville and the Immigrant Community Action Project (MICA.)
Dr. Lamothe enjoys being outdoors, taking walks, bicycling, especially the MCT trails throughout the County with her enthusiastic walking partner — a rescue dog named Pluto, who is a beagle basset mix (she also has two rescue cats named Bucky and Rose). She also enjoys cross-country skiing, gardening and camping.
Dr. Lamothe was born in Cape Cod, Mass., but spent most of her childhood in Keene, N.H. She met her husband, Steve Smidowicz, while hiking in White Mountains with the New Hampshire Outing Club.
The couple purchased a 16-foot travel trailer two years ago and since then traveling the Midwest and the south, as well as planning trips to the northeast.
The couple has two adult children, a son who is a student at SIUE and a daughter who lives in Vermont.