" I have been entrusted with a big responsibility to continue successfully leading this largest scientific-research institute in Croatia," Smith said after being appointed. He will stepped into the post in March.
I and all of us at the institute will endeavour to continue with key projects such as O-ZIP and additionally advance the institute and excellent science that we are working on and enable further development with special emphasis on excellence, he added.
Dr. Smith is a renowned scientist in the field of chemistry with a huge international reputation. He started his career in Australia and has both Australian and Croatian citizenship.
He has published 53 scientific articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) data base and has been cited more than 1,355 times.
Smith joined the IRB in 2004 as a Research Associate in the Division of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry.
As of March last year he was the Acting Head and Senior Scientist in the Division of Physical Chemistry at IRB and since April he has been a special adviser in the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports for research and development.
Smith succeeds the acting head Stjepko Fazinic, who replaced Tome Anticic after Anticic became a state secretary in the Education and Science Ministry.