Smith graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Princeton University, where she was influenced in her freshman year by Charles Fefferman.
In 1988 she became a graduate student at the University of Michigan,[2] where in 1993 she earned her PhD with thesis Tight closure of parameter ideals and f-rationality under the supervision of Melvin Hochster.
The prize committee specifically cited her papers "Tight closure of parameter ideals" (Inventiones Mathematicae 1994), "F-rational rings have rational singularities" (American J.
[4] In addition to the Satter Prize, Smith was the recipient of a 1997 Sloan Research Fellowship,[5] a Fulbright award, and a University of Michigan Faculty Recognition Award for outstanding contributions as a teacher, scholar and member of the University community.
[6] Smith was selected to give the 2015 Earle Raymond Hedrick Lectures at the Mathematical Association of America's MathFest.