Dr. Smith earned her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the UCLA School of Medicine in 1985. Her dissertation topic was allograft rejection in marine sponges, from which she published three refereed papers and two reviews. She moved to Caltech as a postdoc to initiate an investigation of the molecular immunology of sea urchins and it was there that she established her current and ongoing research program. She moved to GW for the Fall semester of 1995 and opened her lab to continue this line of investigation. Since then, accumulating data has led her to learn that the sea urchin immune system is not simple as she first assumed for all invertebrates, but is complex, sophisticated, flexible, and effective in protection against pathogens. Her continued investigations of sea urchin immunity generated continuous NSF funding from 1993 to 2017, and then from 2019 to 2023. The total amount of external funding that she has generated since serving as a faculty member at GW is $2,782,052 plus $147,315 in support of student/postdoc travel to international meetings and a large equipment award to the Biology Department. The outcome of her work has been a consistent record of publications on the immune functions of sponges and sea urchins since the mid 1980’s. To date, she has published 60 peer reviewed papers, 23 non-peer reviewed articles, in addition to 1 has been submitted, 3 that are in press, and 5 manuscripts that are in preparation. She is known as the world expert on echinoderm immunology and receives requests for help and advice from researchers and journal editors from around the world. She has taken advantage of the opportunity at GW to train postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates in comparative immunology. Since joining the department of Biological Sciences, the department has expanded the number of comparative immunologists from one to three, which is a significant and unique focus for the department in the field of comparative immunology in the country and throughout the world. She has expanded her activities for supporting Comparative Immunology based on her election to the office of President-Elect for the International Society of Developmental and Comparative Immunology (ISDCI) in 2015. She assumed the position of President of the society at the triennial Congress during the summer of 2018. This position will continue until the next ISDCI Congress which has been delayed twice because of the pandemic and is now scheduled for 2023.