Andrew T. Smith

Andrew Smith is President’s Professor Emeritus and a Distinguished Sustainability Scientist in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He is a conservation biologist whose work includes the behavioral ecology of mammals, effects of habitat fragmentation, and ecosystem services provided by small mammals. Smith served as Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Lagomorph Specialist Group from 1991 - 2021. Books include: A Guide to the Mammals of China (2008), Lagomorphs: Pikas, Rabbits, and Hares of the World (2018), The Astonishing Astounding Amazing Sonoran Desert (2019), and Magnificent Majestic Mono Lake (2022). In 2015 Smith received the Aldo Leopold Conservation Award from the American Society of Mammalogists. Smith first camped in the eastern Sierra when he was one year old and through-hiked the John Muir Trail when he was 17. He has studied American pikas in the Sierra Nevada since 1969 and Plateau pikas on the Tibetan plateau since 1984.