Alison Smith

Dr. Alison Smith is a Principal Research Fellow at the School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics, University of Wollongong. With over 40 years of experience as a biometrician, her research focuses on linear mixed models for plant breeding and crop improvement programs, particularly addressing genotype-environment interactions and multi-phase experimental design.

• Key collaborations: Industry partnerships across Australian plant breeding programs
• Honors: Invited to deliver the 2019 Fisher Memorial Lecture at Rothamsted Research

Her research spans applied statistics and statistical genetics, with recent work on the Design Tableau approach for linear mixed models. She has supervised multiple PhD projects on topics like genomic selection and statistical diagnostics in plant breeding.

Notable grants include the ARC Training Centre in Predictive Breeding and Linkage Projects grants. Her 70+ publications include high-impact studies on frost susceptibility in cereals and genetic analysis of heat stress adaptation in wheat.