Professor Susan J Smith PBA

Unequal geographies; the dynamics and integration of housing, mortgage and financial markets; the uneven geographies of credit and investment risks in housing; the uneasy encounter between market mechanisms and an ethic of care
Photo of Susan J Smith smiling
Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2008
Honours
PBA
Subjects
Geography

Summary

Professor Susan Smith became President of the British Academy in 2025. She is known for her contributions to social geography and for her collaborative interdisciplinary research on the links between housing, inequality, health and wellbeing. Her empirical work in Australia, the UK and the USA has been funded by research councils, public bodies and charitable trusts. For more details, you can view her profile on the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge and Girton College, University of Cambridge.

Susan is a member of the Society of Authors, and of the Royal Geographical Society, who awarded her the Victoria Medal in 2014; she is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She has enjoyed a variety of visiting positions internationally, at the European University Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Australian National University (ANU), RMIT and Curtin Universities in Australia.

Current post

The British Academy President

2025 -

Girton College, University of Cambridge Honorary Emerita Professor of Social and Economic Geography

Girton College, University of Cambridge Life Fellow

Past appointments

University of Cambridge Mistress (Head) of Girton College

2009 - 2022

Durham University Professor of Geography and Co-Director of the Institute of Advanced Study

2004 - 2009

University of Edinburgh Ogilvie Professor of Geography

1990 - 2004

Related Fellows

Professor Stuart Elden FBA

The history, concept and practice of territory; contemporary territorial and boundary disputes and geopolitics; political and social theory; the history of geographical and political thought

stuart-elden.jpg

Professor Sarah Franklin FBA FRSB FAcSS

Social study of new reproductive technologies and bioscience; histories and cultures of IVF; gender theory; new kinship studies; reproductive sociology; anthropology of reproduction

Sarah-Franklin-FBA

Professor Christopher Pinney FBA

Commercial print cultures of South Asia (especially chromolithography), visual culture of popular politics and religion; anthropological approaches to photography, history of photography in India; Hindu practice in rural central India

Christopher-Pinney-FBA.jpg

Sign up to our email newsletters

Join our mailing list to explore the ideas and impact of the British Academy. Get updates on research, funding, policy, international collaborations, and events that bring the humanities and social sciences to life.