Torquil Smith received his doctorate in geophysics from University of Washington, was a post-doctoral fellow at Institut de Globe de Paris (Bourse Chateaubriand), and had post-doctoral appointments at University of Washington and University of Cambridge. Subsequently, he has been a research associate, research engineer, and research scientist at University of California at Berkeley, in the (former) Materials Sciences and Mineral Engineering department, and a geologist, research scientist, and geological scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in the (former) Earth Sciences Division, and (current) Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, where he is scientific engineer associate. He has worked in numerical modelling and inversion of electromagnetic induction data, and currently works on coupled thermal hydrological and mechanical modelling in the Earth with application to enhanced geothermal systems, material failure and seismicity, and steam injection in diatomite reservoirs.