andrew-smith.me

Andrew Smith

Applied AI & Data · Andrew.P.Smith95@gmail.com · GitHub · LinkedIn · andrew-smith.me

Summary

I build AI and data systems for science and mission-driven organizations, from an agentic platform serving 120,000 nonprofit constituents to generative models for drug discovery published at ICML 2025. I lead communications and analytics at Glacier National Park Conservancy and teach graduate deep learning at Johns Hopkins, where I earned an MS in Bioinformatics (4.0).

Experience

2017 – present

Glacier National Park Conservancy

2022 – present

Associate Director of Communications and Analytics

Dec 2025 – present
  • Write custom software and build internal AI tools across the organization, including an agentic marketing platform serving 120,000 constituents
  • Promoted from Communications Lead to direct integrated communications strategy with measurable goals for philanthropic giving and online retail revenue
  • Serve on the Executive Team, reporting to the President; supervise the Creative Lead and Communications Fellow
  • Use analytics to guide fundraising and retail strategy as part of a team that grew annual contributions 51% ($3.6M to $5.4M) and retail sales 71% ($4.6M to $7.8M) from 2022 to 2025

Communications Lead

Jul 2022 – Dec 2025
  • Developed and executed a strategy to help scientists communicate their research to the public
  • Automated processes to scale communications while increasing personalization and relevance

Johns Hopkins University

2025 – present

Assistant Instructor

Aug 2026 – present

Deep Learning with Transformers · ChatGPT from Scratch · Quantum Machine Learning

  • Promoted from Teaching Assistant to instruct graduate courses in deep learning, large language models and quantum machine learning
  • Helped develop the Quantum Machine Learning course

Teaching Assistant

Aug 2025 – Aug 2026

Advanced Applied Machine Learning · Deep Learning with Transformers · ChatGPT from Scratch

  • Supported graduate instruction across machine learning, deep learning and large language models
  • Guided students through complex ML implementations and research methodology

Glacier National Park

2017 – 2022

Visual Information Specialist

Apr 2020 – Jun 2022
  • Produced and hosted the Headwaters podcast, which reached #1 in Nature on Apple Podcasts; season two earned the NPS Intermountain Freeman Tilden Award
  • Designed educational wayside signs for park roads

Naturalist Park Ranger

May 2017 – Apr 2020
  • Delivered more than 200 public educational programs to over 8,500 park visitors

Projects

10 entries
No.YearTitleTypeContext
012025–Agentic Marketing Automation for Nonprofit FundraisingInternal app at Glacier National Park Conservancy that automates two LLM-driven marketing workflows for 120,000 constituents: brand-guideline review of marketing materials, and an agentic segmentation loop that clusters constituents into five persona segments and customizes copy per segment via vector retrieval. Built with the Claude and Gemini APIs and the Drip API. Co-designed with student teams from CMU's Heinz College and Tepper School. In active internal use.SystemGlacier National Park Conservancy · in production
022025Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug DesignDeveloped a hybrid quantum-classical machine learning architecture for drug discovery that achieved a 2.27-fold improvement in candidate quality while using 60% fewer parameters than classical baselinesPaperCodePaperICML 2025, Generative Biology Workshop
032023–Glacier Daily UpdatesAutomated daily email for 2,500 subscribers on conditions in Glacier National Park. Aggregates weather forecasts and alerts, air quality, trail and road status, ranger programs, aurora forecasts and sunset-quality predictions, with satellite imagery of a featured peak and sunrise timelapses from park webcams. Covered by automated tests, with retries on failed runs. Presented at the 2025 Public Lands Alliance Conference.LiveCodeSystemGlacier National Park Conservancy · in production
042025–AI Email QA PortalInternal web app that runs every Glacier National Park Conservancy marketing email through a five-step check before it sends: link validation, AI spelling and grammar review with Gemini, editorial style-guide checks, brand design checks, and multi-person approval. Has checked about 200 emails. Also runs judging for the Conservancy's annual photo contest.SystemGlacier National Park Conservancy · in production
052023–Park Wi-Fi Email Signup PipelineGuest Wi-Fi splash page at Glacier National Park locations that adds visitors to the Conservancy's email list, tagged by access-point location, plus an automated weekly report of signups by location and day with week-over-week comparison. Brings in about 2,000 new subscribers a week.CodePipelineGlacier National Park Conservancy · in production
062024Raiser's Edge NXT Integration for Custom Email Marketing WorkflowsBuilt a Chrome extension and Flask backend that bridges Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge NXT donor-management platform with the Drip email marketing platform, allowing fundraisers at the Glacier National Park Conservancy to control which email campaigns specific constituents receive directly from the Raiser's Edge interface. Presented at the Blackbaud bbdevdays developer conference in 2024.CodeExtensionToolPresented at bbdevdays 2024
072025De novo Antibody Generation with RFdiffusionDeveloped a complete computational antibody design pipeline using diffusion models to generate novel therapeutic antibodies from scratch, created an accessible Google Colab notebook for public use, and authored an educational tutorial demonstrating the end-to-end process from target selection to structural validationNotebookWrite-upTutorialGoogle Colab · blog
082024Protein Expression Analysis in Esophageal CancerBuilt a full-stack tool to analyze protein expression patterns in esophageal cancer, integrating SQL databases, Python analysis, and interactive visualizations to identify potential therapeutic targetsLiveCodeToolCancer bioinformatics
092024Algorithmic Approaches to mRNA Pseudoknot PredictionEvaluated computational approaches for RNA structure prediction, achieving 11% faster prediction of pseudoknot motifs through combination of machine learning algorithmsCodeStudyRNA structure prediction
102025Algorithmic Foundations of Quantum Machine LearningAuthored a comprehensive theoretical analysis examining the mathematical differences between classical neural networks and parameterized quantum circuits, focusing on how quantum entanglement enables novel representational capacities and correlation structures beyond classical machine learning paradigmsWrite-upEssayBlog

Publications

July 2025ICML 2025 - Generative Biology Workshop
Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design: Architecture Principles for Improved Molecule GenerationAccepted
June 2022Kelseya: Newsletter for the Montana Native Plant Society
A Conversation on Fern Taxonomy with Susan FawcettA discussion with Susan Fawcett, a PhD Research Botanist at the University and Jepson Herbaria at UC Berkeley, specializing in fern evolution, on her work with Thelypteridaceae and fern taxonomy
December 2021Kelseya: Newsletter for the Montana Native Plant Society
What Does the Future Hold for Glacier's Alpine Plants?In the lead article for the Winter 2021 edition of Kelseya, I examine new plant morphology data to hypothesize about the future of this ecosystem

Talks

July 2025ICML 2025 - Generative Biology Workshop · Vancouver, Canada
Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design: Architecture Principles for Improved Molecule GenerationPresentation on hybrid quantum-classical machine learning architectures for drug discovery
February 2025Public Lands Alliance Conference · Las Vegas, NV
Custom Dynamic Content with Data API IntegrationGetting science to bigger audiences using cron, REST APIs, public resources to create a compelling, automated newsletter
June 2024bbdevdays
Integrating RENXT with Automated Email MarketingDemonstrating a custom JS Chrome extension to give fundraisers control over automated email constituents receive through an email platform API
September 2022Whitebark Pine Science and Management Conference · Dillon, MT
Telling the Whitebark Pine Story: A Media PerspectivePanelist at a session on using the media to tell the story of the whitebark pine and connecting with the public with science
December 2021National Association for Interpretation Conference · Palm Springs, CA
Podcasts: The Best Thing Your Park Isn't DoingTelling the story of the Headwaters podcast and how it revolutionized our public outreach efforts and brought national park science and history beyond the park boundaries

Awards

May 2025Johns Hopkins University
Patrick Cummings Research AwardThe Patrick Cummings Research Award recognizes students for exceptional research in the field of biotechnology during their graduate studies. Given for my independent research, "Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design."
January 2022National Park Service
Intermountain Group Freeman Tilden AwardThe Freeman Tilden Awards are the highest interpretation awards presented to a National Park Service individual or team to recognize outstanding contributions to the profession of interpretation. Given for work on season 2 of the Headwaters podcast, covering the plight and recovery efforts for the whitebark pine, an ecologically important tree threatened with extinction.

Education

MS · GPA 4.0Johns Hopkins University
BioinformaticsResearch: Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug DesignPatrick Cummings Research Award for exceptional research in the field of biotechnology
Coursework (14 courses)
  • Biochemistry · Fall 2022 · A
  • Introduction to Programming Using Python · Fall 2022 · A
  • Molecular Biology · Spring 2023 · A
  • Data Structures · Spring 2023 · A
  • Practical Computer Concepts for Bioinformatics · Summer 2023 · A
  • Epigenetics, Gene Organization & Expression · Fall 2023 · A
  • Algorithms for Bioinformatics · Fall 2023 · A+
  • Introduction to Bioinformatics · Spring 2024 · A
  • Algorithms for Structural Bioinformatics · Spring 2024 · A
  • Advanced Practical Computer Concepts for Bioinformatics · Summer 2024 · A
  • Applied Machine Learning · Summer 2024 · A
  • Advanced Applied Machine Learning · Fall 2024 · A+
  • Independent Research in Biotechnology · Spring 2025 · A
  • Computational Drug Discovery and Development · Spring 2025 · A+
BA · GPA 3.91Middlebury College
Religion, Philosophy, and Political Sciencesumma cum laude, Theodore S. Woolsey Prize (department award), Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, thesis with highest honors

Skills

LLMs & Agentic AI

Claude API · Gemini API · Prompt engineering · Agentic tool use · MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers · Vector stores / embedding-based retrieval · RAG-adjacent persona retrieval

Machine Learning

PyTorch · scikit-learn · PyTorch Geometric · MLFlow · Graph Neural Networks · Generative models · Pipelines

Programming

Python · Django · Flask · HTML/CSS · JavaScript / TypeScript · R · NumPy · SciPy · Pandas · uv

Bio & Cheminformatics

RDKit · DeepChem · RFdiffusion · PyMol · ChimeraX · Docking

Data & Operations

SQL · PDB · Git · Docker · Unix · REST APIs · GPU

Data Visualization

Matplotlib · Seaborn · Plotly · 3Dmol.js

Quantum Computing

Pennylane · Qiskit

Volunteer

2022 - Present
Board Member, Montana Native Plant Society
  • Serve on the Conservation Committee
  • Book speakers and facilitate conversations for the MNPS Presents speaker series
  • Lead educational plant walks for the public
2022 - Present
Volunteer Judge at County Science Fair
  • Give students feedback on their work and the scientific method
2022 - Present
Citizen Botanist
  • Document rare plant communities in technical mountainous terrain
  • Conduct post ESA-delisting monitoring for Howellia aquatilis