Rate My Professor Jeremy Smith

Jeremy Smith serves as the Governor’s Chair Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Director of the Department of Biochemistry & Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is also the UT/ORNL Governor’s Chair for Molecular Biophysics and Founding Director of the UT/ORNL Center for Molecular Biophysics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A leader in molecular biophysics within the Biology faculty, Smith's research explores the interface of biological, environmental, physical, computational, and neutron sciences. His primary interests include high-performance computer simulation of biological macromolecules, supercomputing, bioenergy, environmental biogeochemistry, drug and vaccine design, and biological neutron scattering.

Smith earned his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of London in 1985 with a thesis titled 'Protein Dynamics Studied by Inelastic Neutron Scattering.' He holds a B.Sc. from the University of Leeds. Following his doctorate, he served as a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer with Nobel Laureate Martin Karplus at Harvard University. In 1989, he established a biomolecular simulation group at the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique in Saclay, France. From 1998 to 2006, he was Chair of Computational Molecular Biophysics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and was named Honorary Professor there in 2008. Since 2006, he has held his current positions at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, advancing joint initiatives with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Smith has authored over 400 peer-reviewed scientific articles. He has mentored 117 researchers across his groups in France, Germany, and the United States, including 43 graduate students, 40 postdocs, 17 staff scientists, and 8 long-term visitors. Forty of his former group members hold university faculty positions, 11 are national laboratory staff scientists, and 14 work in industry. His contributions earned him the ORNL Director’s Award for Individual Achievement in 2017 and fellowship in the Royal Society of Chemistry.