Robert Smith

Robert A. Smith, PhD is a cancer epidemiologist and Senior-Vice President, Cancer Screening, and Director, American Cancer Society Center for Cancer Screening (CCS). He also is Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University School of Medicine. He received his PhD at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1984, spent three years at the Boston University School of Public Health, and six years at the CDC before joining ACS in 1992. At the ACS he leads the ACS CCS in the development of cancer screening guidelines, and special research and policy initiatives focused on cancer prevention and control. While at CDC he was the project officer for the ACR-CDC Cooperative Agreement for Mammography Quality Assurance, contributed to writing the MQSA legislation, and was on the first FDA MQSA Advisory Committee. In 2004 he delivered the Wendell Scott Memorial Lecture at the American College of Radiology 31st National Conference on Breast Cancer; was awarded the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Medal of Honor in 2011, and in 2012 he received the American Society of Breast Diseases Global Pathfinder Award, “for visionary leadership in the fight against breast cancer. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed scientific articles, reports, and book chapters, and a frequent lecturer on cancer screening issues.