Dr. Smith joined the Language Research Center in 2016 as a Postdoctoral Associate.

He obtained his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire in 2008 and both his M.A. (2012) and Ph.D. (2014) from the Brain and Cognitive Sciences program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC).  His research experience has covered token reinforcement, conditioned reinforcement, and the effects of a traumatic brain injury on decision-making in rats.  A common theme in his work is to explore the concordance between human and nonhuman motivation and decision-making. While at the LRC he worked on many projects including those looking at metacognition and gambling behavior in monkeys.

Dr. Smith is an active member of the Association of Behavior Analysis International since 2005 and the Society of the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior since 2007.  He has also participated in affiliated organizations, including the Mid-American Association for Behavior Analysis and the Southeastern Association for Behavior Analysis.

Dr. Smith is now at Ohio State University and will be starting a tenure-track position at Southern Illinois University in the fall.