Neil G.Smith

Dr. Smith’s research over the past ten years has been in computational cultural heritage and archaeology. Prior to his appointment at KAUST, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), University of California, San Diego (UCSD) (2011-2013). He played a critical role in developing novel software and hardware applications for archaeology and cultural heritage through Calit2’s Center of Interdisciplinary Science of Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3). Dr. Smith has extensive archaeological field experience as a supervisor and excavation director in Southern Jordan. He is also the co-director of the Lowlands to Highlands Edom Project in Southern Jordan. This project’s main focus is to understand the social, historical, and ceramic interconnections between the Iron Age Lowlands (Faynan), the highlands (Showbak area) of Edom and neighboring regions. Currently, Dr. Smith is a research scientist at GMSV Center where he is spearheading the merger of archaeology with computer science, scientific visualization, computer vision, and virtual reality. He has also begun archaeological research in KSA focusing on the ancient civilizations that were neighbors and trade partners with Ancient Edom and the later Nabatean Empire.