Ward Smith, Ph.D., is a program director in the NIGMS Division of Cell Biology and Biophysics, where he oversees grants in the area of the biophysical properties of proteins and biophysical methods, and advises on grants and activities related to structural biology. He also oversees individual predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships in cell biology. Smith served as director of the NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative, which ended in July 2015. Prior to joining NIGMS, he was a protein crystallographer in the Biosciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory, where his research focused on synchrotron structural biology of macromolecules. Before that, he worked in structural biology and drug design in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Smith earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan. He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles.

biophysical properties of proteins and biophysical methods, structural biology, biological chemistry and synchrotron structural biology of macromolecules.