Thomas Russell Smith (1910-1996) joined the Department of Geography at the University of Kansas in 1947 and retired in 1981, having served as professor and head of the department, as well as the first director of the university's East Asian Studies Center.

The son of geographer J. Russell Smith, Thomas R. Smith had the opportunity to travel around the world with his family in 1925-1926 and to Europe in 1929. He received a B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College (1933) and a Ph.D. from Columbia University (1943). From 1943-1946 he served in the U.S. Army and worked in the cartographic division of the Office of Strategic Services in London, Germany, and Washington.

While at the University of Kansas, Smith was instrumental in building a collection of modern maps (named the Thomas R. Smith Map Collection in his honor upon his retirement and housed in the University of Kansas Libraries), as well as Spencer Research Library's Orbis Collection of early maps and reference works on the history of cartography. He published research on maps represented in the Orbis Collection, The Mapa Geográphic Meridional, 1775, by Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla, and the mid 17th-century portolan charts drawn by Nicholas Comberford (a member of a group of English chartmakers known as the "Thames School"). He also offered a course on the history of cartography.