Dr. Smith was born and raised in San Francisco, California.  She attended Yale University where she majored in Chemistry, graduated in 1998 cum laude, and was awarded the Howard Douglas Moore Prize for excellence in the field of Chemistry.  She attended Duke University School of Medicine where she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha in her 3^rd year of medical school and upon graduation in 2002, she received the E.E. Owens Clinical Scholar Award, recognizing two fourth year students for clinical excellence. As a resident in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital from 2002-2005, she developed a strong interest in malignant hematology that inspired her to pursue a career as a physician-scientist studying leukemia. She entered hematology/oncology fellowship at UCSF in 2006.  During fellowship, she trained in the laboratory of Dr. Neil Shah, where she studied resistance to FLT3 tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs).  Her post-doctoral work in Dr. Shah’s lab laid the foundation for her work establishing FLT3 as a therapeutic target in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and her identification of FLT3 kinase domain (KD) mutations as a major mechanism of resistance. Dr. Smith joined the faculty of UCSF as leukemia/stem cell transplant physician in 2009 while continuing her research.  She established her independent laboratory at UCSF in 2016. Her laboratory is focused on understanding how leukemia cells rewire cellular signaling to evade therapy.  Current research focuses include the study of RAS/MAPK signaling in resistance to targeted therapies in AML, including inhibitors of FLT3 and the anti-apoptotic protein BCL2.  She also holds multiple leadership roles at UCSF, including Program Director for the UCSF Physician Scientist Career Development Program and has formerly served as the Associate Program Director for the Hematology/Oncology Fellowship. She is also Co-Leader of the Molecular Oncology Program for the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center.