R.T. Smith stumbled inadvertently into anthropology upon returning to Pembroke College, Cambridge after several years travelling the world at government expense as a member of the Royal Air Force. Subsequently carried out dissertation research in the then British Guiana, now Guyana. Upon graduation as a Ph.D. (Social Anthropology) in 1954 took up a research post at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, which made it possible to do more field research, first in Jamaica and then again in British Guiana. After a year teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, spent three years teaching and carrying out research at the University of Ghana, West Africa, before returning to the Department of Sociology at the University of the West Indies. Joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago in October 1966 after further teaching at McGill University, Montreal. Retired from full-time teaching on July 31st 1995. Now spending time browsing the World Wide Web and working on the huge backlog of unfinished research that has accumulated during the eight years spent as chairman of the department (see various projects listed in the Site Map).

Source: University of Chicago.