Professor Richard van Zyl-Smit is a Professor of Pulmonology and consultant pulmonologist, and Deputy Head of the Division of Pulmonology, Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town South Africa. He is a principal researcher at the UCT lung Institute. Currently he serves as Chair of the American Thoracic Society International Health Committee and the immediate past-president of the South African Thoracic Society.

After qualifying as a pulmonologist in 2007, he completed his PhD investigating the effects of tobacco smoke and nicotine on human pulmonary defence mechanisms to tuberculosis infection. He was supported by an NIH Fogarty fellowship and additionally completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at UMDNJ. His major research interests are airways diseases specifically; asthma and COPD with a focus on tobacco, household air pollution, electronic cigarettes and their impact on pulmonary immune responses (to pneumococcal and mycobacterial infection) and the development of COPD, particularly in low-income settings.

He has over 120 peer review publications spanning smoking cessation, vaping, tobacco smoking and infections, TB and critical care to asthma and COPD. He is a frequent speaker at both local and international meetings and educational events. He is a international Global GINA Asthma ambassador and serves as the South African representative on the international GOLD COPD committee.

He is passionate about writing and mental health, having authored two books on mental health and sustainability in academia and medicine. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic he wrote weakly reflections on life through the lens of COVID-19 and ICU later published as ‘thoughts on a Saturday morning’. His first book a personal reflection on burnout, academic pursuits and mental health.