Donald Smith has been teaching at Guilford College since 2005. His teaching and research focuses on how to foster student-driven engagement with understanding how the universe works as well as their place in it. 

He manages Guilford's introductory and advanced physics laboratories, laser optics laboratory, and rooftop observatory. All of these facilities are designed for students to use to develop their skills and support their curiosity. He is interested in how computers can be used to model complex systems, and his classrooms are often an interweaving of reading, programming, and experimentation. He loves to get students on the roof to look through telescopes. The gasps of wonder when people see Saturn, or the ethereal beauty of the Moon, for the first time, make all the work worthwhile.

Formally, his research background is in astrophysical transients: flares and explosions in deep space, or material falling into black holes. He is developing the observatory into a facility that can perform simultaneous visual and spectral monitoring of transient sources such as supernovae or variable stars. Mostly, though, he is interested in helping students figure out what questions they have, and how to go about answering them.

Read more on Don's personal website, https://guilfordphysics.com/dasmith/.