Andrew Smith is affiliated with the Human Dimensions Faculty in the School of Life Sciences. He is a conservation biologist, behavioral ecologist and mammalogist, and weaves these together to look at policy issues in the general area of biodiversity conservation. Andrew’s work is largely international in scope, and he has worked in China since 1984. He believes in using science to identify and generate solutions to environmental issues. One of his current projects involves curtailing the massive poisoning campaigns directed at native small mammals in central Asia that have been identified by authorities as pests. Instead, these animals function as ecosystem engineers and are keystone species that maintain the region’s unique biodiversity.

He also initiated and remains co-director of the IUCN Species Information Service (SIS). SIS is designed to be an authoritative, trustworthy, scientifically objective, up-to-date and globally accessible environmental and conservation knowledge system, based on species and integrated with the IUCN Red List database.

He is Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Lagomorph Specialist Group, on the founding Board of Directors of the Asia Section of the Society for Conservation Biology, and Associate Editor of Mammal Review and Acta Theriologica Sinica. He serves on the advisory board of a large number of local (grassroots) non-government organizations including the first Tibetan environmental NGOs. Currently he is spearheading the production of The Mammals of China (Princeton University Press).

http://sols.asu.edu/faculty/asmith.php