Ross E. Smith is Associate Professor of Piano at the Hurley School of Music of Centenary College of Louisiana. He received his bachelor’s degree in piano from Brigham Young University, and earned his Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

While in graduate school he taught piano and music literature at the University of Michigan All-State Summer Camp at Interlochen for three summer terms. He has been an active soloist, giving recitals throughout the United States and in Italy. He traveled to Italy on a research grant from Centenary College to study the life and music of Alfredo Casella at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, and has given lectures and recitals based on his findings there. Dr. Smith is also an active clinician, offering lecture recitals that include a variety of topics including a dramatization of Chopin’s Ballade in F Minor, the transcendentalism of Beethoven’s Sonata Op.111, Rachmaninoff’s “Faust” Sonata, and advanced pedaling techniques. At Centenary College he has taught Film Music, Music Theory, Intro to Music History, Applied Piano, Senior Seminar, and has been a regular guest lecturer in a wide variety of Centenary’s religion courses. In the Fall 2009 semester he co-taught the course “Joseph Smith and Early Mormonism” with Dr. Peter Huff in the Religious Studies department. Dr. Smith also sat for many years on the Advisory Board for the Christian Leadership Center at Centenary and during the summer of 2012 he taught a five week seminar sponsored by CLC titled, "The Mormon Moment: a Look at What Sets the Latter-day Saints Apart."

In 2018 he was called to serve a 10-year term as the Shreveport Louisiana Stake President (ordained ecclesiastical leader over 11 churches throughout the Ark-La-Tex) in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He and his wife Luisa have been married since 1990 and have two children, Kayla and Nathan.