Matthew Smith - Microsoft Research

Matthew Smith

I aim to enable confident predictions of complex natural systems, especially in areas of societal importance (e.g. climate change, food and water security, global conflict). To do this I work on

understanding complex natural systems better, the dominant determinants of their dynamics and their predictability, and,

understanding how to understand complex natural systems better

My core focal areas are large scale biogeochemical and ecological processes, such as the global carbon cycle and the determinants of ecosystem structure and function.

Recently we produced world's first fully data-constrained global terrestrial carbon model in which every parameter of every component function has been inferred using empirical data. It predicts the global distribution of natural plant carbon (at equilibrium) with 70% accuracy! See here for more details.

Publications

Cory Merow, John A. Silander, and Matthew J. Smith, A practical guide to MaxEnt for modeling species' distributions: what it does, and why inputs and settings matter, in Ecography, Wiley, April 2013
Maurizio Sajeva, Claudio Augugliaro, Matthew Smith, and Elisabetta Oddo, Regulating Internet Trade in CITES Species, in Conservation Biology, Wiley, 8 February 2013
Mindy M. Syfert, Matthew J. Smith, and David A. Coomes, The effects of sampling bias and model complexity on the predictive performance of MaxEnt species distribution models , in PLOS One, vol. 8, no. 2, PLoS, February 2013
M. J. Smith, D. W. Purves, M. C. Vanderwel, V. Lyutsarev, and S. Emmott, The climate dependence of the terrestrial carbon cycle, including parameter and structural uncertainties, in Biogeosciences, vol. 10, pp. 583-606, European Geosciences Union, 29 January 2013
Noel McGough, David Kikodze, Richard Wilford, Lucy Garrett, Grigol Deisadze, Natalie Jaworska, and Matthew J. Smith, Assessing non-detrimental trade for a CITES Appendix II-listed plant species: the status of wild and cultivated Galanthus woronowii in Georgia, in Oryx, The International Journal of Conservation, Cambridge Journals, 2013
Matthew J. Smith, Mark C. Vanderwel, Vassily Lyutsarev, Stephen Emmott, and Drew W. Purves, The climate dependence of the terrestrial carbon cycle; including parameter and structural uncertainties, in Biogeosciences Discussions, vol. 9, pp. 13439-13496, European Geosciences Union, 4 October 2012
Neil Dalchau, Matthew Smith, Samuel Martin, James R Brown, Stephen Emmott, and Andrew Phillips, Towards the rational design of synthetic cells with prescribed population dynamics, in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, vol. 9, pp. 2883-2898, The Royal Society, May 2012
Jonathan A. Sherratt and Matthew J. Smith, Transition to Spatiotemporal Chaos Via Stationary Branching Shocks and Holes, in Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, Elsevier, 2012
Jennifer J.H. Reynolds, Xavier Lambin, Fergus P. Massey, Stefan Reidinger, Jonathan A. Sherratt, Matthew J. Smith, Andrew White, and Sue E. Hartley, Delayed induced silica defences in grasses and their potential for destabilising herbivore population dynamics, in Oecologia, Springer, 2012
Matthew J. Smith, Richard J. Williams, and Drew W. Purves, Boosting CITES Through Research, in Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 18 February 2011
Heil, A., Smith, M.J., Brändle, and A., Future Development Environments for Computational Scientists, in EUD4Services: Workshop on End User Development of Software Services and Applications, Microsoft Research, 25 May 2010
Kikodze, D., McGough, N., Smith, M., Wilford, R., Garrett, L., Memiadze, N., Kharazishvili, D., Manevelidze, M., Deisadze, G., Pantsulaia, T., Eristavi, and M., Trade in Georgian Snowdrops - A Roadmap to Sustainability. , no. MSR-TR-2010-65, February 2010
Jonathan A. Sherratt, Matthew J. Smith, and Jens D. M. Rademacher, Patterns of sources and sinks in the complex ginzburg-landau equation with zero linear dispersion, in SIAM Journal of Applied Dynamical Systems, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2010
Matthew J. Smith, Hesiquio Benitez Diaz, Margarita A. Clemente-Munoz, John Donaldson, Jon Hutton, Noel H. McGough, David H. Morgan, Colman O'Criodian, Thomasina E. Oldfield, Uwe Schippmann, and Richard J. Williams, Assessing the impacts of international trade on CITES-listed species: current practices and opportunities for scientific research, in Biological Conservation, Elsevier, 2010
Daniel M. Tompkins, Alison M. Dunn, Matthew J. Smith, and Sandra Telfer, Wildlife Diseases – From Individuals To Ecosystems, in Journal of Animal Ecology, Wiley, 2010
Richard Wilford and Matthew Smith, Drop by Drop, in Kew Magazine, December 2009
Matthew J. Smith and Jonathan A. Sherratt, Propagating fronts in the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation generate fixed-width bands of plane waves., in Physical Review E, 6 October 2009
Matthew J. Smith, Jens D. M. Rademacher, and Jonathan A. Sherratt, Absolute stability of wavetrains can explain spatiotemporal dynamics in reaction-diffusion systems of lambda-omega type, in SIAM Journal of Applied Dynamical Systems, 8(3), 1136-1159, 27 August 2009
Jonathan A. Sherratt, Matthew J. Smith, and Jens D.M. Rademacher, Locating the transition from periodic oscillations to spatiotemporal chaos in the wake of invasion, in Proceedings of that National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(27), pp. 10890-10895, 7 July 2009
Noel McGough, Richard Wilford, Lucy Garrett, and Matthew Smith, Georgian Bulb Quota, no. MSR-TR-2009-77, 30 June 2009
Matthew J. Smith, Sandra Telfer, Eva R. Kallio, Sarah Burthe, Alex R. Cook, Xavier Lambin, and Michael Begon, Host-pathogen time series data in wildlife support a transmission function between density and frequency dependence, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(19), pp. 7905-7909, 12 May 2009
Begon, M., Telfer, S., Smith, M.J., Burthe, S., Paterson, S., Lambin, and X., Seasonal host dynamics drive the timing of recurrent epidemics in a wildlife, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 20 January 2009
Matthew J. Smith, The application of population modelling techniques to the development of Non-detriment Findings for Galanthus elwesii in Turkey., in International Expert Workshop on CITES Non-Detriment Findings, Microsoft Research, 17 November 2008
M. Begon, S. Telfer, S. Burthe, X. Lambin, M. Smith, and S. Paterson, Effects of abundance on infection in natural populations: field voles and cowpox virus., in Epidemics, 6 October 2008
Matthew Smith, Jonathan Sherratt, and Xavier Lambin, The effects of density dependent dispersal on the spatiotemporal dynamics of cyclic populations, in Journal of Theoretical Biology, Elsevier, 21 September 2008
Fergus P. Massey, Matthew J. Smith, Xavier Lambin, and Sue E. Hartley, Are silica defences in grasses driving vole population cycles?, in Biology Letters, January 2008

Other peer-reviewed publications

M.Smith, A.White, J.A.Sherratt, S.Telfer, M.Begon, X.Lambin, (2008) Disease effects on reproduction can cause population cycles in seasonal environments. Journal of Animal Ecology, 77(2), 378-389 doi:10.1111/j.1365-2656.2007.01328.x. Supplementary Material .

M.J. Smith, J.A.Sherratt (2007) The effects of unequal diffusion coefficients on periodic travelling wave properties in oscillatory reaction diffusion systems. Physica D, 236(2), 90-103, doi:10.1016/j.physd.2007.07.013

Sherratt, J.A. & Smith M.J. (2008) REVIEW, Periodic Travelling Waves in Cyclic Populations: Field studies and reaction-diffusion models. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2007.1327 Proc. R. Soc. Interface, 5, 483-505.

M.J. Smith, R.Sibly (2008) Identification of tradeoffs underlying the primary strategies of plants. Available online, Evolutionary Ecology Research , 10(1), 45-60.

M.J. Smith, J.A.Sherratt, N.J.Armstrong, (2008) The effects of obstacle size on periodic travelling waves in oscillatory reaction-diffusion equations. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London - Series A, 464, 365-390. doi: 10.1098/rspa.2007.0198.

M.J. Smith, A.White, J.A.Sherratt, X.Lambin, M.Begon, (2006) Delayed Density Dependent Season Length Alone can Lead to Rodent Population Cycles. American Naturalist 167(5), 695-704. doi: 10.1086/503119.

C.Buckee, K.Koelle, M.J. Mustard (Smith), S.Gupta, (2004). The Effects of Host Contact Network Structure on Pathogen Diversity and Strain Structure. PNAS 101(29), 10839-44. doi:10.1073/pnas.0402000101

M.J.Aitkenhead, M.J.Mustard (Smith), A.J.S.McDonald, (2004). Using neural networks to predict spatial structure in ecological systems. Ecol. Mod. 179(3), 393-403. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2004.05.008.

M.J. Mustard (Smith), D.B.Standing, M.J.Aitkenhead, D.Robinson, A.J.S.McDonald (2003). The emergence of primary strategies in evolving virtual-plant populations. Evol. Ecol. Res. 5, 1067-81. Available online.

Other Publications

Smith, M.J., Brodie, C., Kowalczyk, J., Michnowicz, S. & McGough, H.N. (2006). CITES Orchid Checklist Volume 4.

United Nations (2005). “Endangered Species” stamp series. Contributed text.

Mustard (Smith), M.J. & Yuzbasioglu, S. (2005). Turkish Delights. Kew Magazine, Spring 2005

McGough, H.N. Groves, M.G. Sajeva, M. Mustard (Smith), M.J. & Brodie, C (2004). CITES and Succulents, A User’s Guide. Lego Press

McGough, H.N. Groves, M.G., Mustard (Smith), M.J.‡ & Brodie, C.(2004). CITES and Plants, A User’s Guide. Lego Press

Williams, C. Davis, K. & Cheyne, P. (with the assistance of Mustard (Smith), M.J. & Brodie, C) (2003). The CBD, for Botanists.

Links

Computational Ecology and Environmental Science

Computational Science

Microsoft Research Cambridge

Tools Archive

Contact

Matthew Smith, Scientist

Computational Science Laboratory,

Microsoft Research,

21 Station Road, Cambridge, CB1 2FB, UK

Tel: +44(0)1223 479 784

Email: mattsmi(at)microsoft(dot)com