Professor Craig Smith is the SmartSat Mike Miller Professorial Chair in Telecommunications from the University of South Australia. During his career, Professor Smith has worked as a Research Scientist, University Lecturer, R&D Manager, Project Manager, Corporate Executive, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Executive Officer across multiple disciplines, including astronomy, space surveillance technologies, astrodynamics and the defence industry. Building on his over 35 years of experience in the space and defence industries, Professor Smith established Smith Optical Systems in 2022 and is the Director and Principal Scientist. Prior to this, he was the Chief Technology Officer at Electro Optic Systems (EOS). He previously held the roles of Chief Executive Officer of EOS’s Space and Defence Systems operations.
Professor Smith spent his early career as a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) where he was awarded an ARC Senior Research Fellowship for the development of advanced thermal-IR instrumentation for imaging, imaging polarimetry and spectro-polarimetry. This instrument was successfully commissioned and then used in an ambitious research program to study the role of magnetic fields in the formation of stars out of the interstellar medium, as well as a variety of other research programs.