Monica L. Smith is professor in the Department of Anthropology and professor in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles. She holds the Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair in Indian Studies and is the director of the South Asian Archaeology Laboratory at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.

Her archaeological field experience includes work in England, India, Italy, Egypt, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Tunisia, and the American Southwest. With her colleague RK Mohanty, she has co-directed a long-running archaeological research project in eastern India at the sites of Sisupalgarh, Talapada and Ostapur and environs, supported by funding from the US National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the American Institute of Indian Studies.

She received her BA in classical civilisations (Rome and Greece) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, an MA in archaeology from UCLA and a PhD in anthropology from the University of Michigan. Her books include ‘Cities: The First 6,000 Years’, ‘A Prehistory of Ordinary People’, and (with RK Mohanty) ‘Excavations at Sisupalgarh’, along with the edited volumes ‘The Social Construction of Ancient Cities’, ‘Abundance: The Archaeology of Plenitude’, and the forthcoming ‘The Power of Nature: The Archaeology of Human-Environmental Dynamics’.

Photo credit: J.E. Snead