Martin C. SMITH is a research professor at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, where he has been employed since September 2012. His main research deals with the analysis and interpretation of data from large spectroscopic surveys like LAMOST and SDSS. In particular he is interested in utilising such data sets to understand both the structure of the Milky Way and its formation. The below figure shows the results of an analysis into the surface mass density of the Milky Way disc (adapted from Smith et al. 2012). 　

Prior to this he was a faculty member at the Kavli Institute in Beijing (2009-2012) and a postdoc at both the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge (2007-2009) & the Kapteyn Institute in the Netherlands (2004-2007). Whilst at the Kapteyn Institute he worked mainly on the analysis of data from the RAVE survey, most notably producing a paper constraining the local escape speed of the Milky Way. He obtained his Ph.D from the University of Manchester (2000-2003), studying gravitational microlensing and its application to our understanding of the Milky Way. 

　　Publications: http://tinyurl.com/mcs-pub 

　　Homepage: http://hubble.shao.ac.cn/~msmith