Dr. Nicola Smith

PhD, 
Liber Ero Post doctoral fellow
incoming faculty at Concordia University

Dr. Nicola S. Smith is a Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Canada, and incoming Assistant Professor of Biology at Concordia University, Quebec, Canada, starting in May 2023. She is also an Associate Editor for NeoBiota, a peer-reviewed, open access, online journal on biological invasions. Her current research focuses on the interactions between climate change and marine invasive species, and its implications for ocean sustainability. Dr. Smith obtained a Hons. B.Sc. with High Distinction from the University of Toronto in 2006, where she double majored in English and Zoology. In 2010, she received a M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of British Columbia while in 2020 she obtained a Ph.D. in Biology from Simon Fraser University. She has over a decade of experience researching biological invasions, coral reef ecology, and tropical fisheries. Her past work focused primarily on the Indo-Pacific lionfish invasion of the Caribbean and on unreported fisheries catches in the Global South. She has received numerous awards for her work including the 2018 Bullitt Environmental Prize, a professional development grant from the Society for Conservation Biology, Latin America and Caribbean Section, and an academic graduate scholarship from the Organization of American States. She has headed two Global Environment Facility/United Nations Environment Programme (GEF/UNEP) funded projects on marine invasive species in the Caribbean.