Tara C. Smith is an American assistant professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa, deputy director of the University of Iowa Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, founder of Iowa Citizens for Science, and posts regularly to her science blog, "Aetiology."

Professional background

Smith has a B.S. in Biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. from the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, Ohio in 2002. Her doctoral work was in microbial pathogenesis and virulence factor regulation in Streptococcus pyogenes (group A Streptococcus, the most common "flesh eating bacterium"). She did her post-doctoral training in molecular epidemiology at the University of Michigan.

Her current work centers on the hypervariable proteins in the group B Streptococcus bacteria ( S. agalactiae), including also S. suis, influenza, adenovirus, and the ebola virus. In general Dr. Smith gravitates towards topics in microbial ecology, emerging diseases, zoonoses, and infectious causes of chronic disease.

Smith has published three books; "Ebola (Deadly Diseases and Epidemics)" "Streptococcus (Group B) (Deadly Diseases and Epidemics)," and Streptococcus (Group A) Ebola (Deadly Diseases and Epidemics) was reviewed by evolutionary ecologist and department editor Meghan Guinnee, PhD in The American Biology Teacher in 2006. She contributed a chapter to a book on science blogs that was reviewed in Nature magazine.

Activism

Smith has been fulfilling the "public health" component of her job by defending science and advocating for rational science-based approaches in different venues. Smith has been active in confronting creationists, intelligent design supporters and addressing the claims of AIDS denialists. Smith has also interacted extensively with the media, urging preparations for potential future global pandemics.

Smith founded the group "Iowa Citizens for Science". Iowa Citizens for Science has several dozen members and opposes the introduction of creationism or intelligent design into the public school science curricula. She was inspired to do this after realizing Iowa did not have such a group, but observing that in Ohio, a similar group was resisting efforts of the Discovery Institute to insert intelligent design in the public school science curricula.

To get publicity for Iowa Citizens for Science, Smith helped arrange and promote the University of Iowa Freethinker's fall 2005 panel discussion entitled, "Intelligent Design: in your classroom?", on intelligent design. This panel discussion featured U of I faculty Scott Robinson, Evan Fales and Mark Blumberg exploring intelligent design with Iowa physicist and "Darwin Dissenter" Fred Skiff.

When a candidate for Deputy Governor in Iowa in 2006, Bob Vander Plaats, advocated teaching intelligent design in public schools in Iowa, Smith and 25 other PhDs and other interested citizens wrote a letter to the editor of the Des Moines Register in association with the 2006 election which was published on October 23, 2006. The activities of Smith and her group were described by a columnist in the Des Moines Register on October 25, 2006.

Smith and the Iowa Citizens for Science organized Darwin Day celebrations in Iowa City in February of 2007. Unfortunately these had to be cancelled at the last minute when a snowstorm did not allow the guest speaker Massimo Pigliucci to attend. Undeterred, Smith and her associates plan to stage a Darwin Day celebration in Iowa City in February of 2008.

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17 2007, Smith, through the group "Iowans for Religion and Science Dialogue", helped to organize a symposium on "Religion and Science" held at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. Numerous luminaries attended, including marine biologist Welsley Elsberry, Georgetown University theologian John Haught, Dover, Pennsylvania biology teacher Jennifer Miller and executive director of the Iowa Academy of Science and Iowa television personality Craig Johnson.

In a similar vein, Smith and her colleagues circulated a petition at the University of Iowa rejecting intelligent design as science. Smith was able to obtain 150 signatures from University of Iowa faculty on the statement.

Smith's efforts to educate the public about the causes and treatment of AIDS have earned her animosity by the AIDS-denialists. Some even contacted her employer to complain that she was corrupting students with her stance that HIV causes AIDS.

Smith has been involved in public outreach, describing the potential threats posed by new potential epidemics like the avian influenza. Smith has given numerous public presentations and interviews about the risks of pandemics and the benefits of preparedness.

Smith moderated a panel discussion on science blogs at the 2007 version of the conference "Yearly Kos". This event was the site of a Democratic presidential candidates forum, and the entire conference was covered by CNN and C-SPAN.

Aetiology

Smith's blog "Aetiology", now hosted at Scienceblogs, discusses a variety of issues in biology, including the evolution-creation controversy. In addition, she is a contributor to the The Panda's Thumb evolution blog. Smith's blog, which was ranked seventh of all science blogs in a Nature magazine study, has helped to garner media attention. She and her blog were featured in the Canadian student-produced science magazine Hypothesis, Cell, Medcape Today, The Epidemiology Monitor Newsletter, and the New England Skeptical Society's "The Skeptics Guide" and Daily Kos. Aetiology was described in WebMD's Medscape Today in 2006 as, "a star attraction on Seed Magazine's ScienceBlogs."

Published works

Published textbooks

Streptococcus (group A). Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0791079015

Ebola. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0791085058

Streptococcus (group B). New York: Chelsea House, forthcoming (2007). ISBN 9780791092439

Book chapters

'"Public health, defense, and what will *really* make us safer", in Zivkovic, Bora, ed., The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs. Chapel Hill, NC: Lulu, 2007.

'"Epigenetics"', T.C. Smith, in Encyclopedia of Epidemiology. Sage Publications, 2007. ISBN 9781412928168

'"Chromosomes in Epidemiology", T.C. Smith, in Encyclopedia of Epidemiology. Sage Publications, 2007. ISBN 9781412928168

Selected journal articles

Smith TC, Roehl SM, Pillai P, Li S, Marrs CF, Foxman B (2006) Distribution of putative and established virulence genes in colonizing and invasive isolates of Streptococcus agalactiae, Epidemiology and Infection, 2007 Aug;135(6):1046-54. Epub 2006 Dec 7, PMID 17156495

Smith TC, Sledjeski DD, Boyle MD (2005) Selective biological pressure and expression of S. pyogenes genes: lessons from a mouse model of skin infection, Recent Research Developments in Microbiology, .

Smith TC, Sledjeski DD, Boyle MD (2003) Streptococcus pyogenes infection in mouse skin leads to a time-dependent up-regulation of protein H expression, Infection and Immunity, 71(10), 6079-82, PMID 14500534

Smith TC, Sledjeski DD, Boyle MD (2003) Regulation of protein H expression in M1 serotype isolates of Streptococcus pyogenes, FEMS Microbiology Letters, 219(1), 9-15. PMID 12594016