Eric Smith

"A brilliant mind, a manner kind."

After getting an undergraduate degree at Swarthmore College in 1965, I have been working as a research associate in the Physics Department at Cornell University since getting my PhD there in 1972. I got married to Mary Cole in 1969, and she is a professor in the veterinary college at Cornell. We have two children who live on opposite sides of the country (Portland, OR and Boston, MA). Except for 3 one-year sabbatical leaves in France, Germany, and England, we have spent most of our time in Ithaca, NY, though we have traveled around quite a bit for periods of a couple of weeks at a time for vacations or conferences. Outside of work I have a number of favorite outdoor activities, including bike riding (18 miles a day of commuting daily, round the year, plus the occasional tour and a bit of local racing), canoeing, cross-country skiing, backpacking, and the sport of orienteering. The latter has been perhaps the most time-consuming in recent years, and we have traveled around the country and quite a few places abroad in order to compete. One bonus is that our son Ross is both an enthusiastic orienteer and quite good by US standards (number one selection on the US team this year), and we see him quite frequently when we travel to competitions. No immediate plans for retirement, since work remains a lot of fun, and we really like the Ithaca area.