Queen’s University Vice-Principal Research, Dr. Nancy Ross, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Steven Smith as the University’s inaugural Deputy Vice-Principal Research for Health Research (Deputy VPR).
Working closely with Faculties and our affiliated hospitals, the Deputy VPR will provide institutional leadership for the coordination and attraction of resources and partnerships for the enhancement of Queen’s health research strategies and profile. This position not only reflects the importance of health as an interdisciplinary research strength at Queen’s, but recognizes the significance of this scholarship in a post pandemic world and at a time when governments are prioritizing investment in biomanufacturing, clinical trial research, in strengthening healthcare and in understanding and ameliorating health disparities.
Dr. Smith, who has been the Vice-Dean Research for Queen’s Health Sciences since January 2020, is uniquely qualified for this role having served the Queen’s research community in many capacities. With the support of Dr. David Pichora, President and CEO of Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC), Dr. Smith will continue to serve as Vice President, Health Sciences Research at KHSC, and with the support of the Board of Directors of the Kingston General Health Research Institute (KGHRI), as President and CEO of the Research Institute. Dr. Smith will transition out of his role as Vice-Dean Research at Queen’s Health Sciences to assume the Deputy VPR responsibilities.
You will find below more details on Dr. Smith’s background and many contributions. I want to thank Dr. Smith for accepting this important role. We are at a moment in time when the importance of health-related research is clearly evident and Queen’s has much to contribute to the scientific and social scholarship needed to ensure our collective health and prosperity. I am confident Dr. Smith will assist in positioning Queen’s and our researchers well.
I want to thank Deans Barbara Crow, Kevin Deluzio, and Jane Philpott, and Deputy Provost Teri Shearer for participating in the selection committee for this role.
More about Dr. Steven Smith
Dr. Smith completed his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry at Western, where he also earned his PhD in 1998. Before joining Queen’s Department of Biochemistry in 2001, Dr. Smith completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford as a Burroughs Wellcome Hitchings-Elion fellow and McGill University as CIHR postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Smith has taken on a number of leadership positions while at Queen’s, including acting as the Director of Queen’s Protein Function Discovery Group & Facility and the Director of Research for the Faculty of Health Sciences. He previously served as the Associate Head for the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, and acted as Chair for the Undergraduate Biochemistry Program from 2007-2011 and again from 2014-2017.
As an expert in structural biology and biochemistry, Dr. Smith has made remarkable contributions to Queen’s and the wider scientific community through his research. In 2009, Dr. Smith was recognized for his research excellence with the Chancellor’s Research Award. He is the recipient of the Faculty of Health Science’s Mihran & Mary Basmajian Research Award and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award.
During his time at Queen’s, Dr. Smith has demonstrated his commitment to students’ learning as an exceptional educator. His numerous awards include the Faculty of Health Sciences Education Award and Life Science Student Choice Teaching Award, and he has regularly received the Biochemistry 3rd Year Teaching Award since 2004.