Eric Smith is a Professor of Practice at the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. He also serves as the Associate Director of the Tulane Energy Institute. He works with various professors on interdisciplinary projects involving energy issues. He also works with Houston and New Orleans engineering firms and with various regional teams focused on economic development. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate energy courses.

He is a 1965 Chemical Engineering graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and earned an MBA, in 1967, from the A. B. Freeman School at Tulane University. In addition to twelve years of full time academic/advisory experience, he has thirty-six years of operational experience, first, in the downstream petrochemical industry, and since 1984, in the offshore drilling and construction sectors.