[4] Following graduate work at Duke, Smith did post-doctoral research at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia[3] and then spent more than a decade at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
[12][13] In 2006, Smith received a Fulbright Scholar Award to conduct additional research in the Arabian Sea and teach at the Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman.
[15] During this project Smith jointly published two books on the taxonomy of copepods in the region[16][17] which were the first peer-reviewed taxonomic information on zooplankton in the Arabian Sea.
[19] In 2004, Smith was part of a team who observed walrus pups abandoned offshore by their mothers who likely left to follow retreating sea ice,[20] research that was covered in the local Ketchikan, Alaska newspaper[21] and national press.
[23] Smith had been nominated to join the Arctic Research Commission, but when she noted that she was not a fan of George Bush's approach to economic and foreign policies, the interview process was stopped.