Alexander K. Smith holds a doctorate in the anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas from the École pratique des hautes études (2016). Until recently, he was a deputy professor of social anthropology at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

In Divination in Exile, Alexander K. Smith offers the first comprehensive scholarly introduction to the performance of divination in Tibetan speaking communities, both past and present.