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Dr Ed Smith

Assistant Professor

Email:

Phone: 024 765 73016

Office:

Twitter: @ed_omicssocial 


Research Clusters

Environment & Ecology

Microbiology & Infectious Disease


Opportunities in the group

For PhD and postdoctoral opportunities, and interest in potential collaborations, please contact me at the above email address.

Research/Teaching Interests

Our research focuses on the ecology and evolution of marine organisms. While we work on a range of organisms, much of our research to date has focused on the coral-algal symbiosis. We are particularly interested in how these symbiotic partners have adapted to environmental extremes and how this sensitive partnership will respond to future climate change. A key aspect of our research approach is leveraging cutting-edge sequencing technologies and developing novel analytical approaches to tackle unresolved fundamental questions in biology

Research: Technical Summary

Research in the Smith lab focuses on understanding how organisms adapt and respond to different environmental conditions. Our current research interests include:

Adaptation to extreme environments: We are studying organisms from extreme environments such as the world’s warmest coral reefs to identify the genes and pathways that are associated with adaptation to different stressors.

Genomic structural variation: We are interested in the genomic architecture that underpins adaptation to different environments. Research in the Smith lab takes advantage of recent developments in long-read sequencing to study structural variation, particularly copy number variation.

Host-microbe interactions: We combine field-based sampling, omics approaches and experimental manipulations to gain a mechanistic understanding of the genetic and environmental factors shaping these interactions.

  • 2023-present: Assistant Professor – University of Warwick
  • 2019-2022: Research Associate – UNC Charlotte
  • 2012-2019: Postdoctoral Researcher/Research Scientist – NYU Abu Dhabi
  • 2008-2012: PhD – University of Southampton
  • 2006-2007: MSc – University College London
  • 2002-2005: BSc – University of Southampton