It is with profound sadness that we share the news that James W. Smith, MD, a former Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Pathology chair and professor emeritus, died Aug. 21, 2025. He was 91 years old.
Smith was born in Lewiston, Utah, on July 5, 1934. He attended Iowa State University, and then transferred to the University of Iowa, where he earned a Doctor of Medicine in 1959. After an internship at Colorado General Hospital in Denver, Colorado, he undertook a residency in pathology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, Iowa, and then served in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant Commander at the Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, until 1967. A faculty position as assistant professor of pathology at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont, was his next career move, followed by a tenured position at the IU School of Medicine in 1970.
In 1977, Smith received the Outstanding Contribution to Clinical Microbiology Award from the South Central Association of Clinical Microbiology. He also served as chair of the Microbiology Resource Committee of the College of American Pathologists from 1981 to 1985. From 1992 until 1997, he served as chair of the IU School of Medicine Department of Pathology, and, in 1998, he was named the Nordschow Professor of Laboratory Medicine. In 2019, he earned the Ritchey Emeriti Faculty Service Award from the IU School of Medicine for his contributions to the school and community.
His colleagues remember him as a colorful and generous character, with an impressively keen mind that was always quick with a joke or a story. A gregarious, sharp-witted and larger-than-life figure, Smith was a respected and formidable colleague, who was active in the community and around the world. He endowed the Smith Professorship in Microbiology and was a board member of Indiana Pathology Endowment. He was also heavily involved in AMPATH Kenya, a partnership between Moi University, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, the AMPATH Consortium of universities around the world led by IU School of Medicine, and the Kenyan government.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that you kindly make a memorial contribution to either AMPATH or the Indiana Medical History Museum, both of which Smith passionately and generously supported with his time and efforts.
A Celebration of Life honoring Smith will be held 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8, at Leppert Mortuary Nora Chapel, 740 E 86th St. in Indianapolis. To share a memory, please visit www.leppertmortuary.com.
