His father, David Smillie, was a professor of psychology. John Smillie graduated in 1974 with a B.A. in mathematics from
New College of Florida. At the
University of Chicago he graduated with an M.S. in 1975 and a Ph.D. in 1977. His Ph.D. thesis
Affinely flat manifolds was supervised by
Richard Lashof. From 1977 to 1980 Smillie was an instructor at
Princeton University. For the academic year 1980–1981 he was at the
Institute for Advanced Study. He was a postdoc for the academic year 1981–1982 at the
University of California, Berkeley, and for the academic year 1982–1983 at
Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). At CUNY Smillie was an assistant professor from 1983 to 1986 and an associate professor from 1986 to 1989 at
Lehman College and CUNY Graduate Center. His research deals with "polygonal billiards and dynamics of
flows on
Teichmüller space; analysis of algorithms; and
diffeomorphisms of surfaces", ==Selected publications==