The 52nd Annual Smith Lecture will be presented on October 2 by Dr. Joe Incandela of UC Santa Barbara.  He is most recently known for being the spokesperson for the CMS experiment at CERN and his role in the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

The lecture is free and open to the public.  The Smith Lecture was established in 1960 in honor of Prof. Alpheus W. Smith who served the university and department of Physics in numerous roles throughout his long career at OSU.  Alpheus Smith was Chair of the Department as well as Dean of the Graduate School and the first president of the Research Foundation.  In addition he founded the school of Optometry (until that time it was a part of the department of physics).  Ultimately Smith Laboratory was named in his honor upon his death in 1968.  Prof. Smith's family continued to be involved with OSU and his son Robert established an endowed chair, an undergraduate research scholarship as well as endowing the Alpheus Smith lecture with funds that will allow it to be held in perpetuity.  He also provided funds for the naming of the Smith Seminar Room in the Physics Research Building. The Smith Lecture is among the longest running annual public lectures on campus and draws a crowd of more than 500 faculty, students and interested community members annually.