Directories

Dr. Stan Smith has served as associate vice president for research since 2007. In that role, he leads several university units providing specialized services to UNLV researchers. In January 2011 he assumed additional duties as Director of the Science and Engineering Building. As a faculty member, Stan holds the rank of professor of life sciences, specializing in desert ecology and the effects of global climate change on desert plants and ecosystems. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New Mexico State University and his Ph.D. from Arizona State University. After a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA and several years as an assistant professor at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, he joined the UNLV faculty in 1985. He has authored approximately 100 scientific publications, including the book Physiological Ecology of North American Desert Plants, and has received UNLV’s two highest research awards — the Harry Reid Silver State Research Award (2003) and the Barrick Distinguished Scholar Award (2006).