Professor Smith is honorary Professor of Geography and Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge.
She was formerly Professor of Geography and a founding Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University; and before that she held the Ogilvie Chair of Geography at the University of Edinburgh. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, as well as a member of the Academy of Social Sciences, and of the Society of Authors.
Her research focuses on the challenge of inequality, addressing themes as diverse as residential segregation, housing for health and fear of crime. Her current research is on the housing economy, and particularly on the uneven integration of housing, mortgage and financial markets.
Her recent publications include Smith, S J et al., (eds) 2012, International Encyclopaedia of Housing and Home (Elsevier) and Smith, S J and Searle, BA (eds) 2010, The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing, The Housing Wealth of Nations (Wiley-Blackwell) (Wiley-Blackwell)