Monica Louise Smith is an American archaeologist, anthropologist, and historian of ancient cities and their household activities.
She is Professor and Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair in Indian Studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
[1] Smith graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in classical civilization from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1985.
[2] In 2016, Smith along with geographer Thomas Gillespie researched potential sites for Edicts of Ashoka.
The edicts are evidence of early political regimes, urbanism, and the spread of Buddhism within the Indian subcontinent.