The son of two retired New York City teachers, Sam M. Intrator began teaching at Smith College in 1999 after more than a decade of teaching and administrative service in public schools in Brooklyn, Vermont, and California. Intrator teaches courses on Urban Education, Teenagers in American Culture, and the Teaching of Writing. He also founded the Smith College Urban Education Initiative-an educational outreach program that seeks to deepen students' understanding of the theoretical, practical, and human issues facing urban educators by engaging them in intensive service learning experience in urban school settings.

Intrator's books and research inquire into what it takes for teachers and students to co-create intellectually vibrant and genuinely meaningful experiences in the classroom. He has written or edited five books, including Tuned in and Fired Up: How Teaching Can Inspire Real Learning in the Classroom (Yale University Press, 2003), which was a finalist for the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Education. Intrator has received a number of awards for his teaching and public service, including a Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship, an Ella Baker Fellowship, and the Distinguished Teacher Award from the White House Commission of Presidential Scholars. His latest effort is the co-development of Project Coach-an after-school program that prepares high school students from underserved communities to be youth sport coaches. These youth coaches then run neighborhood sport leagues in their home neighborhoods.

Intrator holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and an MA degree from the Bread Loaf School of English.