Dr Smirnova is an assistant professor at environmental Health and Engineering Department at Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Center of Alternatives to Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins University, where she is leading Education Program and Program on Microphysiological systems. She has joint appointments at Johns Hopkins school of engineering and Georgetown University. Her research focus on development of new approach methodologies for developmental neurotoxicity testing and understanding gene environmental interactions in autism. She received her PhD from Charite Free University, Berlin and PostDoc training at Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, where she studied the role of microRNA in neural development. She is a Co-organizer of a series of conferences on Microphysiological Systems (MPS) and chair of the international MPS society.