Role
Academic Mentor
Career overview
Prior to joining NTU Dr Smith taught at the University of Birmingham and also held a research position at the University of Bradford’s Department of Peace Studies.
Research areas
Dr Smith’s doctoral research dealt with the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific movement. Whilst this primarily focused on the Pacific-based anti-nuclear protests of the 1980s this work led to a long-standing interest and engagement with a more nuanced research agenda looking at a broad range of Pacific island-related topics. Notably this has included health-related issues and, increasingly, research into climate change and the negative impacts of sea-level rise on low-lying atoll communities in the Pacific region. This has involved fieldwork research in several Pacific island states including Palau, Republic of the Marshal Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu.
External activity
Dr Smith has been a visiting fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra and the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
He has contributed to several European Commission ‘Development Days’ and has acted as a resource person for a Pacific regional consultation on developing vocational programmes in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.
He is a member of the Council of the Pacific Islands Society of the United Kingdom and Ireland (PISUKI) and also a member of the Advisory Council of the development education NGO Think Global.
Sponsors and collaborators
Dr Smith has received external funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the European Commission. In particular this has been to support collaborative research with colleagues at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
Press expertise
- International Development and Climate Change - especially in relation to the low-lying small island states of the Pacific region