Stephen Marc Smith is a professor of photography in the ASU School of Art. Smith began teaching at ASU in 1998, following 20 years at Columbia College in Chicago. He is a photographer and digital montage artist, whose work has been extensively exhibited throughout his career. His previous research for "Passage on the Underground Railroad," which explored North America's Underground Railway that moved escaped slaves to freedom, is a registered program of the Network to Freedom division of the National Park Service, a 2009 book publication, and was a University at Buffalo Galleries’ five-site traveling exhibition that included the Phoenix Art Museum.