Rate My Professor Dave Smith

Dave Smith is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia, within the College of Engineering, Science and Environment. As an applied mathematician, his work focuses on problems in mathematical physics, using partial differential equations to describe physical systems such as water waves and heat conductance. He studies linear partial differential equations of high spatial order with complicated boundary conditions and associated spectral theory. His research encompasses dispersive revivals, mathematical physics, partial differential equations, spectral theory of nonselfadjoint differential operators, and the unified transform method. Smith leads the Unified Transform Lab at the University of Newcastle and runs the Pure & Applied Mathematics Seminar.

Smith earned a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of York in 2007 and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Reading, UK, in 2011. Prior to his current role, he was Assistant Professor of Science (Mathematics) at Yale-NUS College, Singapore (2016–2024), Assistant Professor (Postdoctoral) at the University of Michigan (2015–2016), Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati (2013–2015), Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Crete (2012–2013), and Teaching Fellow at the University of Reading (2011–2012). He has taught courses including proof, complex analysis, ordinary and partial differential equations, applied calculus, boundary value problems, calculus, precalculus, and real analysis. Key publications include 'Jumps and cusps: A new revival effect in local dispersive PDEs' (Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 2026), 'The Airy equation with nonlocal conditions' (Studies in Applied Mathematics, 2024), 'Revivals, or the Talbot effect, for the Airy equation' (Studies in Applied Mathematics, 2024), 'Fokas Diagonalization' (Springer Proceedings in Complexity, 2023), 'TIME-PERIODIC LINEAR BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS ON A FINITE INTERVAL' (Quarterly of Applied Mathematics, 2022), and 'New revival phenomena for linear integro-differential equations' (Studies in Applied Mathematics, 2021). He holds Associate Fellowship of the UK Higher Education Academy.