Robert D. Smith, PhD

Director of Market Development

Robert Smith joined HerbalScience in 2007 as Director of Market Development. Dr. Smith has worked in academia and in the private sector. During his academic tenure as a Research Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, Dr. Smith supervised numerous doctoral and post-doctoral students in the area of phytoremediation (the use of plants to remove toxins from the environment). In 1997 Dr. Smith joined Dekalb Genetics (later a subsidiary of Monsanto Co.) as Project Leader, working on improving the nutritional value of corn grain. In 2000, he became Director of Research and Development at PhycoGen, Inc., a start-up biotech company working on small molecule discovery targeting new therapeutics and diagnostics. Dr. Smith joined Global Protein Products in 2003 as Vice President and Director of Research and Development. During his tenure there, he oversaw the research and development of shelf-life extension technologies that have widely been adopted by major fruit and vegetable processing facilities worldwide. Dr. Smith later became President of Zein Protein Products, a newly formed subsidiary of Global Protein Products that produced a unique protein from corn as an edible film barrier for food applications. Dr. Smith has authored more than 20 reviewed publications and book chapters and is an inventor on more than 10 issued or pending patents. Dr. Smith received his BA from the University of Chicago in 1982, a PhD from the University of Chicago in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology in 1989, and did his post-doctoral work at the University of Missouri-Columbia.