Craig Smith

Craig grew up in Anchorage, Sequim and Seattle prior to graduating from the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1975. He received advanced training at Columbia University (Medicine), the University of Washington (Neurology), and The University of Pennsylvania/Wills Eye Hospital (Neuro-ophthalmology). He is a fellowship-trained neuro-ophthalmologist with residency training in Medicine, Neurology, and Ophthalmology.

He returned to Seattle as an academic neuro-ophthalmologist and ended up starting a regional Multiple Sclerosis Center caring for these patients and families and leading innovative research studies in the development of MS drug treatment protocols for almost 25 years. Escaping academia/clinical work, he was lured into biotechnology at Genentech. After leading teams in neuroscience, ophthalmology and eHealth at Genentech (in San Francisco) and Novartis (Basel, Switzerland), Craig returned from Switzerland and founded CHS Consulting, continuing his work with technological interface with health issues.

Dr. Smith is currently a Senior Advisor/Consultant with the Gates Foundation, working with surveillance teams to incorporate technology paradigms into bio-surveillance and healthcare provisioning. Other consulting work involves the merging of technology with healthcare treatment paradigms, specifically the computer-human interface leveraging decision/image analytics and natural language processing to allow paradigms of healthcare in both developing and developed cultures.

Craig lives in Seattle with his wife, Sue, a Seattle School District (former Seattle Children’s executive) nurse. When not working with various innovative projects, he sits on the WWF Council Board, and Board of Nature Bridge, is exploring hiking areas near his home on West Sequim Bay, and remains active in competitive master’s rowing on Lake Washington in the early mornings, having been a national championship rower for the UW in the 1960s.