Nigel Smith joined SNOLAB as Director during July 2009. He currently holds a full Professorship at Laurentian University, adjunct Professor status at Queen's University, and a visiting Professorial chair at Imperial College, London. He received his Bachelor of Science in physics from Leeds University in the U.K. in 1985 and his Ph. D. in astrophysics from Leeds in 1991. He has served as a lecturer at Leeds University, a research associate at Imperial College London, group leader (dark matter) and deputy division head at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, before relocating to Canada to oversee the SNOLAB deep underground facility.

Dr. Smith has studied astroparticle physics in extreme locations throughout his career, studying astronomical sources of ultra high energy gamma rays using a telescope at the South Pole, searching for Galactic dark matter using detectors located 1100m underground at the Boulby facility in the U.K., and subsequently overseeing dark matter and neutrinos studies 2km underground at the SNOLAB facility in Canada. In 1987 he “wintered-over” as the sole operator of the telescope at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, being the first Briton to successfully winter at the Pole itself.

As Director, Dr. Smith has full operational responsibility for the SNOLAB underground facility hosted at the Vale Creighton mine, supporting a fully international science programme. He has responsibility for deriving facility funding, overseeing management and operations, and development of the science programme itself. He supports the scientific community by serving on several peer review, agency science strategy and institute board and oversight committees.