Ashleen Smith
Research Interests
- Investigating the influence of agriculture land use on pesticide exposure patterns to bumble bee colonies.
Suspect and non-target screening of pesticides and environmental contaminants in bee matrices using advanced analytical techniques such as LC-HRMS (liquid chromatography couples to high resolution mass spectrometry).
- Assessing the toxicokinetics and metabolism of pesticides and other chemicals in bumble bee
Curriculum Vitae
since 2025
PhD candidate at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Department of Exposure Science, Leipzig, Germany.
2023 - 2025
Master of Science (M. Sc) in Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Erasmus Mundus joint master’s degree: Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (UPPA) France, University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Norway, University of the Basque Country (EHU/UPV), Spain. Thesis title: “Unveiling the sorption of non-polar organic pollutants onto microplastics”, faculty of Analytical Chemistry, University of the Basque Country.
2023
Analytical Chemistry Internship – Water Protection Section, Office for Waste, Water, Energy and Air (AWEL), Canton of Zurich, Switzerland
2017 - 2021
Bachelor of Science (B. Sc. Hons) in Chemistry and Polymer Science, Stellenbosch University (SU), Stellenbosch, South Africa