Andrea Smith

Welcome to my personal website! Here you'll find out more about my professional background and interests, along with updates on my latest endeavours.

I'm an accomplished and results-driven science policy professional with over 16 years of experience in research funding, knowledge translation and more recently, health artificial intelligence (AI).

I currently direct a multidisciplinary team within the Canadian government’s Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, leading two high profile and impactful programs: The Strategic Science Fund (~$800M) and the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy (~$500M). I ensure that we fund and oversee the most impactful science organizations to advance the Government of Canada’s science-driven priorities across multiple sectors, including its leadership in AI.

In previous roles, I was instrumental in advancing the Vector Institute’s Health AI research agenda by forging strategic collaborations with hospitals and data partners, providing AI researchers with essential data sets and compute environments to accelerate the development of innovative models addressing health challenges.

I seek to expand my expertise in AI safety and governance, aligning with the Canadian government and research community’s prioritization of investments and efforts in this field. My goal is to actively contribute to these initiatives as a policy professional within the federal government.

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