Neil Smith, an expert in geography, social theory and urban anthropology, earned his B.S. from the University of St. Andrews, his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, and was the Robert Lincoln McNeil Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught at Columbia University and at Rutgers University, where he was chair of the geography department from 1991 to 1994 and a senior fellow at the Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture. His visiting appointments include the University of Sao Paulo, Princeton, University of Utrecht, University of Queensland, and University of Oregon. The recipient of many awards and honors, Professor Smith is the author or editor of a number of books including Uneven Development, Geography and Empire, and New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. He won several prizes (including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography) for his 2003 book, American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude of Globalization, and has just published The Endgame of Globalization.

Photo: Jason Fulford