Paul Smith

Paul Smith is Director of Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Professor of Natural History. He is also a Fellow of Kellogg College. Prior to coming to Oxford he was Head of the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, as well as Director of the Lapworth Museum of Geology. He has spent most of his career working in university museums in Cambridge, Copenhagen, Birmingham and Oxford. 

Paul undertook his BSc in geology at the University of Leicester before moving to the University of Nottingham for his PhD on the micropaleontology of conodonts from the Ordovician of Greenland. His PhD was followed by postdoctoral posts working on conodont palaeobiology in Nottingham and on the sedimentary basin analysis of Arctic regions in Cambridge. He has over thirty years' experience of Arctic field expeditions and was awarded the Polar Medal in 2017.