Early life and education
Smith was born inPeace Corps service
Smith joined theAcademic career
She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering atInventions
Smith's designs include theMotorized hammermill
{{main, Screenless hammer mill Smith invented a motorized hammermill that converts grain into flour which she successfully tested in Senegal. The problem with other motor-driven mills is that the screen that filters out rocks and coins could not be made locally and it could take several months to get a new screen. Smith's mill sifted out finished flour aerodynamically using a simpler design that could be manufactured locally by village blacksmiths. "It's nice when looking at things differently is a good thing, and not something where you get zero credit on a problem", Smith said. Smith planned to use some of the prize money from the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to produce and distribute the mills.Phase change incubator
{{main, Phase-change incubator Smith worked on an incubator that requires no electricity. The device was originally designed to diagnose sexually transmitted diseases. The phase change incubator won the 1999 B.F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventor's Award for $20,000. Smith planned to start a company around the incubator. "I'm not a person who likes money, so whether it makes a profit is neither here nor there", Smith said. "I didn't want to be in the position of closing down the product because it wasn't making money. That's not the point of the product."Cornsheller
{{Main, Universal nut sheller With other members of D-Lab and community partners, Smith has developed a small, easy-to-make cornsheller "for removing the dried kernels from an ear of corn. The corn sheller can be either cast in aluminum or made from a sheet of metal."{{cite web, url=http://d-lab.mit.edu/resources, title=Resources | MIT D-Lab, website=d-lab.mit.edu, access-date=May 31, 2019 More information on the cornsheller including instructions on how to make it are available under a Creative Commons License at thIDEAS competition
Smith co-founded the MIT IDEAS Competition where teams of student engineers design projects to make life easier in the developing world. "Some of the IDEAS competition winners have been very successful", says Smith. "The compound water filter, which removes arsenic and pathogens, is now deployed quite extensively in Nepal. The Kinkajou microfilm projector, used in nighttime literacy classes, is being deployed in Mali. We're working to commercialize a system for testing water for potability. It's in the field in several countries, but not on a widespread basis. We're looking towards doing a trial of aerosol vaccines in Pakistan, so that's exciting."International Development Design Summit
{{main, International Development Design Summit Smith is one of the lead organizers of the International Development Design Summit (IDDS), held annually to study problems in the developing world and create real, workable solutions to them. "I believe very strongly that solutions to problems in the developing world are best created in collaboration with the people who will be using them", Smith said. "By bringing this group of people together, we get an incredibly broad range of backgrounds and experiences."Rethink Relief Design Workshop
Smith was instrumental in creating the Rethink Relief Design Workshop in 2011. Rethink Relief is "dedicated to creating technologies for humanitarian relief that specifically address the gap between short-term relief and long-term sustainable development."{{cite web, title=Rethink Relief - About, url=http://www.rethinkrelief.com/wordpress/?page_id=64, access-date=May 27, 2012 The workshop was co-organized in October 2011 by industrial design faculty at theCreative Capacity Building
Smith and colleagues at D-Lab have been working on a new type of curriculum - Creative Capacity Building or CCB. The purpose of CCB is to place "the expertise in the village instead of at MIT."{{cite web, url=http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/d-lab-0506.html, title=In the World: Cultivating creativity | MIT News, website=web.mit.edu, access-date=May 31, 2019 The CCB curriculum teaches the design process without expecting strong literacy or other academic training. The goal is individuals, groups and communities who are able to not only articulate their needs but to design and build solutions.Awards
* Collegiate Inventors Award, 1999 (for the phase-change incubator) * First woman to win the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, in 2000. *References
{{Reflist, 35emFurther reading
*{{cite web , title=Amy B. Smith , url=https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/amy-b-smith , website=Lemelson-MITExternal links