She is the director of the Ecology Institute, and the Center for Landscape Dynamics. She is also a faculty associate of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State, and graduate faculty member in the intercollege graduate degree program in ecology. Smithwick recently served as a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa at Rhodes University. Her laboratory group (LEAPS: Landscape Ecology at Penn State, leaps.psu.edu) is actively involved in understanding how a wide range of disturbances affect ecosystem function at landscape scales. Current research is focused on the influence of these changes on socio-ecological resilience and sustainability, with special attention to protected area management in Africa and the U.S.