Professor Smith's research is focused upon development and application of remote and in situ sensors in diverse problems of environment and medical science.
Professor Smith has developed a drone-mounted hyperspectral snapshot sensor for remote sensing of the environment and for in situ neuroscience and non-invasive cancer diagnostics studies. The latter are being pursued in collaboration with faculty in the engineering school. He is also collaborating with the engineering departments in the development of methods for determining the detailed scattering and absorption properties of aerosols for use in radiative transfer models of clouds, the most critical unsolved problem in climate modeling.