Jennifer E. Smith is an American marine ecologist and coral reef expert who works at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Smith was an undergraduate student at the California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where she majored in zoology.

[2] She identified that non-indigenous marine algae require strategic management to avoid dominating over native plants.

[2] After her PhD, Smith was appointed a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi, where she worked on the causes of macroalgal blooms on Maui.

[6] She also identified that adding a small amount of Asparagopsis to cattle feed can reduce the methane emissions from dairy cows.