Dr. Smythies earned a Ph.D. in physiology at Kings College, London University, England, and received postdoctoral fellowship training in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at UAB and the Department of Biology at the University of York, England. She rejoined UAB in 1998 and currently serves as an Associate Professor. Dr. Smythies is a collaborative research investigator in the Mucosal HIV and Immunobiology Center (MHIC), with a research focus on the mucosal immune response to parasite and bacterial pathogens. Recently, she has focused her research efforts on investigating the mucosal immune response to Helicobacter pylori as well as investigating the immunobiology of intestinal dendritic cells in healthy mucosa and inflamed mucosa from patients with Crohn’s disease.