Not to be confused with the same-named actress who once played Captain James T. Kirk in an infamous body swap episode of the original “Star Trek” series, Sandra Smith is the business reporter who boldly went from the trading floor to Fox News.

Whereas many of her colleagues try to court as much publicity as possible, Smith is a relatively private person who prefers to keep her personal and professional life entirely separate. But from athletic meets to meet-cutes, here are a dozen things that we do know about John Roberts’ latest work wife.

Sandra Smith graduated from Louisiana State University in 2003 with a degree in business. But she actually began her further education at another college in Illinois. It was only when the star took advantage of a national student exchange program that she realized where her true calling was. And it was LSU’s Gallic charms that convinced Smith to make the move permanent.

In another interview with LSU Media Center that same year, Smith revealed that her decision paid off in many ways: “I close my eyes because it’s my happy place. I love to think about Baton Rouge and my time spent there: the people I met, the places I went, the food I tried. It was just such a unique experience that I’m forever grateful for … I feel like I was exposed to so much when I was at LSU that it really helped me start to look at what I wanted to do.”

Who knew that Sandra Smith was once a part of the same track and field team as Olympians Muna Lee and Lolo Jones? Yes, back in her college days, the Fox News staple was a talented long distance runner who competed in steeplechase and cross-country. In fact, as of 2016, she still held Louisiana State University’s third-fastest time ever in the former’s 3,000 meter discipline.

In 2016, Smith told Runner’s World how important running remains to her daily routine: “I have long days at work, which is why it’s really important that I come home and just have that few minutes to myself to clear my head, go for a run. I love running — it’s my escape, it’s when I think best. With so much going on, running is no longer a chore or a stress to me. It’s a getaway.”

While some would argue that certain Fox News personalities aren’t particularly qualified to inform the nation, that’s not an accusation that can be leveled at Sandra Smith, who certainly knows what she’s talking about when it comes to business.

Throughout her business career, Smith also represented her employers on various financial TV shows. And in 2007 an impressed Bloomberg Television came calling. In 2016, the star told Adweek, “The whole process was very organic … I decided to make a huge career change, moving to television after working in the institutional trading world, a field in which I had studied and achieved all of these fancy licenses. It was a very difficult decision, but that was my big break.”

Sandra Smith’s first day at Chicago’s Terra Nova Institutional was certainly an eventful one. As well as progressing her career as a sales trader, it was also the moment when she first set eyes on her future husband, John Conolly.

Conolly actually left the firm within two weeks, but the pair stayed in touch, and after enjoying a proper first date at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, romance began to blossom. And although Smith later moved to New York to take a job at Bloomberg Television, the pair made their long-distance relationship work. In 2010, they said “I do” at a ceremony at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral. Conolly later joined his wife in the Big Apple after accepting a director of marketing position with the CME Group and the couple have remained there happily ever since.

Sandra Smith may work for a news organization that leans heavily toward the right, but that doesn’t mean she avoids calling out prominent Republicans when necessary, as Kayleigh McEnany found out to her cost. In 2020, the White House press secretary was trying to defend Donald Trump after he appeared to give his blessing to controversial conspiracy theorist group QAnon. After McEnany claimed that the 45th POTUS had never explicitly mentioned them, Smith reminded her that just 24 hours earlier, “His words were that he has heard about them. And that they are people that love our country. It was puzzling to many people.”

In 2014, Smith told The Hollywood Reporter that she always tries to be as balanced as possible: “I don’t include personal politics in my journalism … Even if my personal belief is in line with the discussion, you’ll see me play devil’s advocate just to make sure the other side is represented.”

Sandra Smith went viral with an on-air faux pas

Rolling your eyes at something said on Fox News is a natural reaction for many on the opposite side of the political aisle. And we now know that even its hosts can respond in a similar manner. Yes, unfortunately for her, the spot of shade-throwing Sandra Smith thought was off-air ended up being broadcast to millions.Smith went viral thanks to an interview with a Washington, D.C. lawyer Cleta Mitchell (above), who refused to accept the official outcome of the 2020 presidential election. As Mitchell was espousing her debunked views about the legitimacy of the election, “Smith, who believed that her mic had been turned off at the time, subsequently remarked to co-host Trace Gallagher, “What? What is happening? Trace, we’ve called it.”

Of course, Smith’s mic was firmly on, meaning her incredulity over Mitchell’s fake news claims soon became the talk of social media. Smith seems to have kept quiet about the goof up, however, Mitchell later doubled down on her beliefs, tweeting that she is “happy to be considered a nut job because I believe in the rule of law.”

Sandra Smith was perhaps always destined to pursue a career in business. As the Fox News host recalled to Politico in 2015, she grew up in Wheaton, Illinois in a family of traders. And her father, in particular, was keen to get her immersed in the world of stocks and shares from a very young age.

Smith, who was a year into her hosting gig on “Outnumbered” at the time of the interview, said, “My dad brought me down to the trading floor as a little kid. I always took to finance, I always took to money, I always took to business. I studied it in college. It wasn’t always my intention to be on television, but it sort of happened that way. I started trading, started going on television, and it was just a natural progression into what I am doing now.”

Bringing things neatly full circle, Smith ended up reporting at the very same marketplace her pop used to take her as a youngster, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The “America’s Newsroom” host had explained to Alister & Paine in 2012, “He was an integral part in introducing me to business and finance. I was the youngest of six kids, one of five girls. He was really good at showing each one of us what he did and what was going on downtown.”