Dr Erica Smith
Lecturer, School of Science and Technology
Qualifications
BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD
Contact
| Email: | erica.smith@une.edu.au |
| Room: | Riggs Building (C23) |
| Phone: | 02 6773 5130 (or +61 2 6773 5130 overseas) |
| Fax: | 02 6772 2368 |
Erica Smith graduated with a BSc from the University of Sydney in 1994 after completing her honours work on integral equation theories of liquid silicon and fluorine, under the supervision of Prof. Tony Haymet. She then relocated to the United Kingdom and worked for Unilever as a research chemist, completing an industry sponsored MSc on the production of hydrophobic silica gel in a ‘one-pot’ process. She then held several corporate roles within the European and Australian chemical and healthcare industries before moving to the United States to complete a PhD in theoretical and computational chemistry in 2004, again under the supervision of Prof. Tony Haymet. Returning to her interests that developed during her honours year her doctoral studies were in the field of applied statistical mechanics and molecular dynamics simulations. After completion of the PhD, Erica spent almost 4 years working in the USA at teaching university but returned to Australia to complete her postdoctoral studies with CSIRO Livestock Industries where she worked on the development and evaluation of new methods for the analysis of quantitative and molecular genetics data. During this time, Erica became an Adjunct Lecturer in Chemistry at UNE in 2009, and accepted a full time position as Lecturer in Chemistry in 2010.
Areas of Teaching
In 2011, she will be teaching into the following courses: CHEM110 (General Chemistry I), CHEM120 (General Chemistry II), CHEM210 (Chemical Structure), PHYS301/501 (Microscopic to Macroscopic Physics and Chemistry), FSC310 (Forensic Chemistry).
2011 Unit Coordinator for CHEM120, CHEM210 and PHYS301/501
Research interests
Currently focusing on biological problems, my research interest is in using computer simulation techniques to assist in the generation new hypotheses and models, and also in using computational methods for the analysis of experimental and simulated data. Computer simulation provides a direct route from microscopic details of a system to macroscopic properties and with the advent of more powerful and cheaper computing, the use of molecular simulation to gain atomic level understanding of important biological systems is rapidly increasing. Research in this area involves utilization of molecular dynamics simulations, scientific programming and data analysis, high-performance parallel computing and applied statistical mechanics. Current areas of specific interest are the stabilization and disruption of phospholipid membranes by antifreeze and antimicrobial peptides, and antigen discovery for vaccine development. I am also involved in computational genetics research and am currently working on a publication investigating the behaviour of simulated genomes under varying stochastic and selection processes.
Selected publications
Smith E.J. and Henshall J.M., Simulated Genomes under Varying Stochastic and Selection Processes, in preparation.
Smith E.J., Dalal P., Haymet A.D.J. and Madura J.D., Molecular Dynamics Simulations of the Type 1 Antifreeze Protein at the Lipid/Water Interface, in preparation.
Smith E.J. and Henshall J.M., Variability in the Distributions of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Effects in Livestock Populations, Proc. Assoc. Advmt. Anim. Breed. Genet., 18, 64, 2009.
Haymet A.D.J., Bryk T. and Smith E.J., Solutes and Stress at the Ice/Water Interface, in Ionic Soft Matter: Modern Trends in Theory and Applications, NATO Science Series II. Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry Vol. 206, D. Henderson, M. Holokov, A. Trohymchuk, eds., Springer, Dordrecht 2005.
Smith E.J., Bryk T. and Haymet A.D.J., Free Energy of Solvation of Simple Ions: Molecular Dynamics Study of Solvation of Na+ and Cl- at the Ice/Water Interface, J. Chem. Phys., 123, 3, 034706, 2005.
The above paper was selected for the August 1, 2005 issue of the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research. Published by the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics, in cooperation with numerous other societies and publishers, it is an edited compilation of links to articles from participating publishers, covering a focused area of frontier research.
Gay S.C., Smith E.J. and Haymet A.D.J., Dynamics of Melting and Stability of Ice 1h: Molecular-Dynamics Simulations of the SPC/E Model of Water, J. Chem. Phys., 116, 20, 8876-8880, 2002.
Smith E.J. and Haymet A.D.J., Ion Solubility in Ice: Calculation of Potentially Favorable Positions of Na+ and Cl- Ions in the SPC/E Model of Ice 1h, Mol. Sim., 30, 13-15, 827-830, 2004.
Smith E.J. and Haymet A.D.J., Ions and Other Solutes at the Ice/Water Interface, in Springer Proceedings in Physics, 89, (Computer Simulation Studies in Condensed-Matter Physics XIV), D.P. Landau, S.P Lewis, H.B. Schüttler, eds., Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2002.