He later won a Fulbright Scholarship to travel to Norway and study at the University of Oslo, where he took the dr.philos.
[2][3] His defense of his doctoral thesis took place in the Norwegian language.
The thesis regarded phytoplankton in the Panama Gulf; the opponents were Trygve Braarud and Odd Henrik Sælen.
[4] Following his stay in Norway, Smayda returned to the University of Rhode Island where he served as a professor of oceanography throughout his career.
[1] Limnology & Oceanography found his article "Harmful algal blooms: Their ecophysiology and general relevance to phytoplankton blooms in the sea" to be one of the top 60 most cited between 1956 and 2016.