Dr Ansie Smit is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Pretoria (UP) in South Africa. She has been employed at the UP Natural Hazard Centre since 2009 as a Researcher and Administrator, as well as a full-time Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geology, since 2020, with Teaching responsibilities in both the Department of Geology and the Department of Statistics.
Her research interests cover theoretical and applied statistics and geosciences. It includes the development and application of methodologies to counter the effect of missing data in the statistical procedures, numerical and computing techniques, data analysis, other applied statistical methods necessary for hazard and risk assessment (including geostatistics and extreme value theory), and the derivation of general worst-case scenarios for various geological, meteorological and hydrological natural disasters when faced with datasets that are incomplete and contains high levels of uncertainty.
Dr Smit continues to develop this focus area by combining it with aspects found in nonparametric and geostatistics, and multi-hazard and risk analyses with tangible links to feedback into actuarial sciences, economics, socio-economics, and engineering.
