Greg Smith

Ancestors

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Biography

Greg was born Feb 16, 1967 in Elmhurst, Illinois, to Robert Smith and Joan Cohen. He was the youngest of three, having two older sisters: Sue & Karen. The family moved to Southern California when he was ~1 year of age, with his parents divorcing shortly thereafter in 1970. His sister, Karen, would often help take care of him. Greg has memories of living in a yellow house on a corner of a residential street (5432 Costello Ave, Van Nuys, CA), where he sometimes could be found riding his plastic Big Wheel. He attended public schools first in Los Angeles through 1st grade. He was a stubborn kid that did not like having his hair cut or changing his style of clothing (lots of horizontal striped shirts and corduroys).

Following the divorce, his father and sisters briefly lived in an apartment in LA county but settled into a townhome in Newport Beach, California, where Greg continued his public education from 2nd-5th grade and enjoyed playing handball and tetherball during recess. He had a childhood love for astronomy, natural history (dinosaurs), and model trains. Being raised by a bachelor that was working to make a success of his business, Greg had a lot of free time growing up and was happy to fill it watching TV and playing outside with friends. His dad occupied some of his time by enrolling him in tennis and sailing lessons, with the latter making a lasting impression.

They moved again to Mission Viejo, California, for 6th grade through high school. The latter move was to favor a better public school system, but it was a tough transition that made him introverted for a while and making few new friends. They even played handball at recess by different rules, and he couldn't get over it. It was in the Mission Viejo house where his father would purchase a computer for his work. This was before the advent of personal computers. Even though this computer was for his dad's business, his father bought him a green soft-back book from Radio Shack entitled: "Computer programming in basic for everyone". This was life changing and taught him logic at an early age. Greg would spend long hours programming simple text games. A couple of years later, his father bought him an Apple II computer for Christmas, which was unquestionably the most exciting gift he had ever received. Too much time was spent programming, entering music into the ALF system, playing games, and logging into the Adventure's Tavern BBS. Greg nevertheless managed to pull things together in his senior year (with inspiration from his English and Humanities teacher, Mr. Chris), graduate Mission Viejo High School, and enroll in college.

Greg's higher education was more successful at grabbing his attention. He obtained a B.A. in Microbiology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He first met Margrit Urbanek while interviewing at the latter. They married on October 20, 1997, after they both obtained their doctorate degrees. Their first daughter, Cassandra, was born in 2000 while they were living in Bensalem, PA, and working as post-docs: Greg at Princeton University and Margrit at UPenn. Greg worked with Lynn Enquist who became his role model.

Greg and Margrit were both appointed Assistant Professors at Northwestern University in 2001, and purchased their first home: in Oak Park, Illinois. Their second daughter, Samantha, was born 2 years later. Greg remains on the faculty of Northwestern University as a tenured Professor. He loves being surrounded by smart and inspired people and counts many of his fellow faculty as friends. In 2017, he founded the company, Thyreos Inc., along with two colleagues, to produce vaccines against human and veterinary herpesviruses. Seeing his daughters move off to college and their own successful lives, he hopes to succeed in limiting herpesvirus infections and then retire somewhere on the coast... with a small sail boat.

WikiTree participation

I am building out my family including distant branches in remembrance to my father, who started work on the Smith genealogy. If you are a nearer relative to any of the profiles that I manage, I am very happy to pass them on to you (and I would love to say hi!).

Sources

• First-hand information.