Smith received her BA from Dartmouth College and her MA, MPhil, and PhD (1997) from Yale University, all in classical archaeology.^[2] Her doctoral thesis was on the topic of Greek personification and this work was published as a monograph in 2011.^[3]

Smith taught at Tufts University, Boston College, and Massachusetts College of Art and worked at the Yale University Art Gallery before moving to the University of Reading.^[1] At Reading, Smith headed the redevelopment of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology in 2004-05 and has worked on the university's collection of vases publishing the 23rd British fascicule of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum project in 2007.^[4][5] Her work on iconography has included research on the depiction of Aphrodite and personifications in Greek art.^[6]

Smith's current work centres on the 2017/18 anniversary of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. She is a member of the Winckelmann-Gesellschaft's International Committee focusing on events to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Winckelmann's birth.^[7] Smith is a co-organiser of a series of conferences to mark the anniversary and is also the co-curator (with Katherine Harloe) of the exhibition Winckelmann in Italy: Curiosity and connoisseurship in the 18th-century gentleman's study at Christ Church Upper Library from 29 June to 26 October 2018.^[8]

Creator (with Brian Fuchs) of the Virtual Lightbox for Museums and Archives.^[9][10]

Founding member in 2011 of the Pottery in Context Research Network (ICS, London).^[1][11]

Member of the Digital Classics Advisory Committee, 2016-18 (ICS, London).^[12]

Founding member of the International Network of Classical Archaeology University Collections.^[1]

Research associate of the Beazley Archive, University of Oxford.^[13]

Member of the Managing Committee of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2015–16; excavated at their excavations in Greece (the Athenian Agora and Corinth) and Spain (Pollentia).^[14]

Member of the advisory board of the Institute in Ancient Itineraries: The Digital Lives of Art History based at King's College, London.^[15]

2016 Gertrude Smith Visiting Professor, American School of Classical Studies at Athens.^[16][17]

Smith was a 2017/2018 visiting research fellow at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University^[18] in Canberra and was invited to give the 2017 Trendall Lecture at La Trobe University in Melbourne entitled 1766 and All That! Winckelmann and the Study of Greek Vases.^[19][20]

• with K Harloe and C Neagu (eds), Winckelmann and Curiosity: In the 18th-century Gentleman's Library (Christ Church Library, Oxford and Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, University of Reading; 2018)
• Winckelmann, Greek masterpieces, and architectural sculpture. Prolegomena to a history of classical archaeology in museums (Studies in Classical Archaeology, 1. 2017)
• Polis and personification in Classical Athenian art (Monumenta Graeca et Romana, 19. Brill, Leiden 2011)
• with S Pickup (eds), Brill's Companion to Aphrodite (Brill's Companions in Classical Studies. Brill, Leiden 2010)
• Corpus vasorum antiquorum, Great Britiain fascicule 23. Reading Museum Service (Oxford University Press, 2007)

• Amy Smith at Academia.edu
• Behind the scenes at the Ure Museum