Douglas Smith is an award-winning author and historian, translator and a resident scholar at the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. He studied German and Russian at the University of Vermont and has a doctorate in history from UCLA. He has written three non-fiction books of history — "Working the Rough Stone," "Love and Conquest" and "The Pearl" — and is completing his latest book, “White Bone: The Destruction of the Russian Aristocracy,” which is scheduled for publication with Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2012.

Over the past 25 years, Smith has regularly traveled to Russia, and in the 1980s was a Russian-speaking guide with the U.S. State Department’s exhibition “Information USA,” which traveled throughout the USSR. He has worked as a Soviet affairs analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and served as an interpreter for the late President Ronald Reagan. Smith has lectured and taught widely in the United States, Britain and Europe and has appeared in documentaries for A&E and National Geographic. A regular contributor to the Seattle Times and other publications, Smith is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship and a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study Center.

For his academic and literary achievements and contributions to fostering a greater understanding of Russian culture and history, we are proud to present Douglas Smith with The Blake School’s 2011 Outstanding Alumnus Award.

Outstanding Alumni Recipient List