Christopher John Smith, FRSE, FSA, FRHistS (born 1965 at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire), is a British academic and classicist specialising in early Ancient Rome.
Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews, and formerly Director of the British School at Rome,[1][2] Smith was appointed on 1 September 2020 as Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
After joining the University of St Andrews in 1992 as a Lecturer in Ancient History, Smith was appointed to a professorial chair in 2002.
[5] Elected FSA (Scot), he served as Proctor & Provost of St Leonard's College at St Andrews,[6] before becoming President of the Unione Internazionale degli Istituti di Archeologia Storia e Storia dell'Arte in Rome from 2012 to 2017.
[7] In 2017 Smith was awarded a three-year Leverhulme Trust Major Research Grant[8] to study Rome's early kings, and is a foreign member to the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi ed Italici in Florence.