Nigel Smith

Dr. Nigel Smith FRS is Executive Director of TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, a role he assumed in May 2021. Previously, Dr. Smith served as Executive Director of SNOLAB for 12 years, and remains as Emeritus Executive Director there. He is an Honorary Professor and Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria, and holds a visiting Professorial chair at Imperial College, London. 

 As TRIUMF Director, Dr. Smith draws on an extensive portfolio of strategic and leadership experience in the development of science research facilities in the U.K. and Canada. He was elected to the Royal Society of London in 2025, and is a CIFAR Fellow in the Earth4D programme. He is on strategic advisory groups for underground facilities, Board member of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, and is chair of the Institute for Quantum Computing Canada Board. 

 Dr. Smith has pursued a wide breadth of world-leading research in extreme environments, including astrophysics and astronomy, deep underground science and dark matter searches. He holds a US Congressional medal for Antarctic service, with bronze bar, for wintering at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, being the first Briton to successfully winter at the Pole itself. 

 He received his Bachelor of Science in physics from Leeds University in the U.K. in 1985 and his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Leeds in 1991. He has served as a lecturer at Leeds University, a research associate at Imperial College London, group leader (dark matter) and deputy Division Head at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, before moving to Canada.