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Professor Susan J. Smith is President of the British Academy, a position she has held since 2025. She is an Honorary Emerita Professor of Social and Economic Geography at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and a Life Fellow of the college. Smith earned a BA and MA in Geography from St Anne’s College, Oxford University, followed by a DPhil from the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography and Nuffield College, Oxford. Her early career included research fellowships at St Peter’s College, Oxford, Brunel University, and the University of Glasgow, after which she served as Ogilvie Professor of Geography at the University of Edinburgh from 1990 to 2004 and as Professor of Geography and Co-Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University from 2004 to 2009. She was Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, from 2009 to 2022.
Smith’s research centres on social and economic geography, with a focus on inequality, residential segregation, housing markets, mortgage finance, and the links between housing, health, and wellbeing. Her work, conducted in the UK, Australia, and the USA, has been supported by the ESRC, Australian Research Council, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and other bodies. She has held visiting positions at institutions including the European University Institute, UCLA, and the Australian National University. Smith was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2008 and has received numerous honours, including the Victoria Medal from the Royal Geographical Society in 2014, the Tanner Lectureship at Cambridge in 2010, and election as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She previously served on panels for the ESRC, HEFCE, and Leverhulme Trust.
The British Academy criticizes fragmented UK higher education policy amid financial crises, course closures, and SHAPE cold spots. Explore impacts, stats, and reform paths.
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