Kate Smith-Miles is a Laureate Professor in Applied Mathematics and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Capability) at the University of Melbourne. She is also Director of the ARC Training Centre in Optimisation Technologies, Integrated Methodologies and Applications (OPTIMA). Kate has over 300 refereed publications in the areas of neural networks, optimisation, machine learning, and various applied mathematics topics. She has supervised to completion over 30 PhD students, and has been awarded over AUD$30 million in competitive grants, including a 5-year Laureate Fellowship from the Australian Research Council. She has received medals for her research from the Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS), the Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society (ANZIAM), and the Australian Society for Operations Research (ASOR).

Kate is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Mathematical Society, and a past President of the Australian Mathematical Society. She is frequently invited as keynote speaker at leading international conferences, including IFORS, GECCO, IEEE CEC and CPAIOR, to discuss her Instance Space Analysis methodology. In 2024, Kate was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her distinguished service to tertiary education, applied mathematics research, and as a role model and advocate for women in STEM.