Smith directs research activities in the Nanolithography Research Laboratory in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering and is a member of the university’s Innovation Hall of Fame. His areas of expertise include high-resolution semiconductor lithography, thin film materials and optical systems. A member of the faculty since 1988, Smith has published more than 200 papers, a textbook and several book chapters. He also holds 27 patents in the areas of illumination systems, masking devices, optical system design and materials engineering, several of which have been licensed for commercialization.

He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering. He holds memberships in the American Vacuum Society, the Society for Information Display and the American Society for Engineering Education. He has served as visiting professor with SEMATECH at the University of Texas, Austin as well as at the international semiconductor research organization IMEC in Leuven, Belgium.

Smith is currently on a yearlong sabbatical, increasing his involvement with IEEE and other professional societies, coordinating several international conferences, as well as working on high-resolution lithography research with semiconductor industry organizations.