Affiliation: Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor
Valentine Mott Professor of Surgery
Chair, Department of Surgery
Columbia University Irving Medical Center of New York
Presbyterian Hospital
New York, USA

Dr. Smith graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College in 1970, and was a 1977 graduate of Case Western Reserve University College of Medicine, where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. He received his postgraduate training in general surgery with a Fellowship in vascular surgery at the University of Rochester. After completing his residency in cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Smith joined the Columbia faculty in 1984. Early in his career he was focused on heart transplantation, and inaugurated a successful program in heart-lung and lung transplantation that remains the major program in the region.

Over time his focus shifted to valve repair and replacement, coronary bypass procedures, and operations involving the thoracic aorta. Dr. Smith was appointed Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Columbia in 1996 and was named Chairman of the Department of Surgery in 2010. Notable among numerous honors and awards, in 2012 Dr. Smith was the 92nd President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. During the first phases of the Covid pandemic in 2020 the daily communiques Dr. Smith wrote to his Department received international attention, out of which grew a book, Nobility in Small Things, that was released by St. Martin’s in late 2023.