- John
Smith, PhD
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B.S. Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Honors
/ Ph.D. Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
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Dr. John Smith has been a teacher and researcher both
in Australia and the United States. He has also been an active sportsman for most of his
life. During his tenure in Australia, he worked closely with the Australian Institute of
Sport for 10 years, a national center for elite athletes. His research on exercise and the
immune system, and exercise in the heat involved several hundred elite athletes from a
variety of endurance sports with an emphasis on practical applications. He has published
both review and experimental papers in most of the major sports medicine and physiology
journals. These papers have focussed on exercise from both the health and sporting
perspectives. Other publications have covered aging, women's health, hormones, and
pharmacology.
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Dr. Smith has also presented research regularly at
major scientific meetings including symposia on The Elite Endurance Athlete at the
1997 American College of Sports Medicine meeting and the 1996 Pre-Olympic congress Australian
Endurance Athletes: The Road to Atlanta. He has also been an invited speaker at
Australian coaching conferences. He has taught courses in personal health and wellness,
stress and stress management, exercise physiology and biochemistry, fitness and
performance, pathology, and pharmacology.
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Dr. Smith's main sporting activity for 15 years was as
an equestrian where he won an Australian Championship at Restrictive Novice level in the
One-Day Event. Since then, he has taken up skiing, distance running, and weight training.
He worked as an assistant to Australian National Distance Running Coach, Dr. Dick Telford
from 1994 to 1996 (coach of 1988 women's Olympic marathon silver medallist and 1992 New
York marathon winner, Lisa Ondieki, among others).
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Dr. Smith was instrumental in developing a cooling vest
used by Australian endurance athletes at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. This
resulted in him traveling with the Australian Olympic team to Atlanta where he was a
consultant and carried out fitness testing. Dr. Smith's experience with over 1000 students
from a variety of backgrounds and many athletes place him in a unique position to
contribute to the education of health and fitness professionals.