Daniel M. Smith was a postdoctoral fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2012–13 academic year.

He is an expert on Japanese politics whose research interests include political parties, elections and electoral systems, candidate recruitment and selection, and coalition government. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, he will be completing a book manuscript about the causes and consequences of political dynasties in developed democracies, with a particular focus on Japan.

Smith earned his PhD and MA in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and his BA in political science and Italian from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has conducted research in Japan as a Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology research scholar at Chuo University (2006–2007), and as a Fulbright IIE dissertation research fellow at the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo (2010–2011). After completing his fellowship at Shorenstein APARC, he will join the Department of Government at Harvard University as an assistant professor.