Geoffrey Smith
Title: Professor
Research area: Environmental Microbiology
Office location: FH 363
Laboratory Location: FH 355/357
Email Address: gsmith@nmsu.edu
Office Phone: 575-646-6080
Lab Phone: 575-646-3606
Lab Webpage: ---
Smith received his PhD from North Carolina State University in Soil Microbiology and at Michigan State University received post-doctoral training in Environmental Microbiology. His current work centers on cellular effects of low-level radiation, biochemical analysis of Permian age halite from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), development of novel bioagent detection approaches and the application of biocatalysis in the area of Bioenergy.
Research Interests:
Low-level Radiation Effects in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Permian-age Salado Formation. We are studying the effects of shielding cells from normal levels of radiation by growing them 650 meters underground at the WIPP site in a pre-World War II 6-in thick steel chamber. The effort is to test the Linear No-threshold Theory from the “other side of background”, in a radiation-shielded environment that is well below natural levels of radiation (Smith et al. 2010). Additionally, the Permian-age halite is being examined for biochemical evidence of ancient life.
Environmental Detection of Microbial Pathogens. One goal of this research area is to understand how microbial pathogens are harbored in environmental reservoirs in between disease outbreaks, and to develop better techniques to detect environmental bioagents. We have developed a method to simultaneously concentrate bacterial, viral and protozoan pathogens from surface waters (Morales et al. 2003), and have used this to document prevalent pathogen occurrence in the U.S. / Mexico Rio Grande watershed (Morales et al. 2006). We are developing carbon nanotube-based sensor for detection of bio and chem agents (Cortes et al. 2010; Venkata et al. 2009), and currently we are applying the nanotubes towards rad detection. We are also developing a near real-time microbial detection method based on differential mobility spectrometry and microbial pyrolysis (Prasad et al. 2008). In separate projects, I am doing microbial source tracking work in regional watersheds, and developing biological sources of energy such as biohydrogen and bioelectricity (Gadhamshetty et al. 2009).
Recent Publications:
- G.B. Smith, Y. Grof, A. Navarette, and R.A. Guilmette. Exploring biological effects of low radiation from the other side of background. Health Physics, IN PRESS. (2010).
- P. Cortes, S. Deng, and G. B. Smith, Covalent coupling of polyacrylic acid coated magnetic-nanoparticles to multi-wall carbon nanotubes for manipulation of targets" J. of Exper. Nanoscience Accepted (2010)
- P. Cortes, S. Deng, L. Camacho, and G. B. Smith, The adsorption properties of Bacillus atrophaeus spores on functionalized carbon nanotubes. Journal of Sensors, vol. 2010, Article ID 691585, 8 pages, doi:10.1155/2010/691585. (2010)
- Venkata K.K. Upadhyayula, Shuguang Deng, Geoffrey B. Smith, Martha C. Mitchell. Adsorption of Bacillus subtilis on single-walled carbon nanotube aggregates, activated carbon and NanoCeram. Water Research 43:148-156. (2009)
- Gadhamshetty, V., Johnson, C.D., Khandan, N.N., and G.B. Smith. Feasibility of biohydrogen production at low temperatures in unbuffered reactors. Internat. J. Hydrogen Energy., 34: 1233-1243. (2009)
- Gadhamshetty, V., Johnson, C.D., Khandan, N.N., Smith, G. , Shuguang, D. Dark and acidic conditions for fermentative hydrogen production. Internat. J. Hydrogen Energy. 34: 821- 826. (2009)
- S. Prasad,K. Pierce,H. Schmidt,J.V. Rao, R. G¨uth,R.E. Synovec, G.B. Smithand G.A. Eiceman. Constituents with independence from growth temperature for bacteria using pyrolysis-gas chromatography/differential mobility spectrometry with analysis of variance and principal component analysis. The Analyst, 133: 760–767 (2008)
- Maritza Macias-Corral, Zohrab Samani, Adrian Hanson, Geoffrey Smith, Paul Funk, Hui Yu and John Longworth. Anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste and agricultural waste and the effect of co-digestion with dairy cow manure. Bioresource Technol. 99: 8288-8293 (2008)
- Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes as Fluorescence Biosensors for Pathogen Recognition in Water Systems, Venkata K. K. Upadhyayula, Soumitra Ghoshroy, Vinod S. Nair, Geoffrey B. Smith, Martha C. Mitchell, and Shuguang Deng. J. of Sensors. Article ID 156358, 5 pages (2008).
- Jennifer L. Sedillo, Ayshea Quintana, Kathryn Sousa, Kevin H. Oshima and Geoffrey B. Smith. The development of point-of-use water filters as sampling devices in bioforensics: extent of microbial sorption and elution. J. Environ. Monit. 10:718–723 (2008).