After 30 years in the corporate world, Lily E. Smernou, PhD, turned her career path toward the arts to pursue her passion for photography, painting and drawing. Her art, which can be found on her website, combines her life-long love for aesthetics and imaginative narratives with the expertise in quantitative psychology that she cultivated throughout her earlier career to create deeply profound pieces that speak to the depths of human behaviors. It was her desire to understand what makes people behave in certain ways that drew her to the field of psychology in the first place, and she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from North College Thessaloniki in Greece.
Going on to matriculate at the University of Georgia, Dr. Smernou obtained a Master of Science in quantitative psychology before concluding her studies with a Doctor of Philosophy in environmental psychology in 1992. During this time, she discovered just how few people had the same specialty. As she entered the workforce, she incorporated her love of analyzing statistics, particularly in making reliable and unbiased questionnaires, into her work. In 1998, she became the president and chief executive officer of Telegnosis Inc., a company that provides consulting services for software engineering and psychological assessment. Her duties with Telegnosis include working with testing services, creating and administering questionnaires, measuring attitudes, and assessing skills and problems.
Attributing her success to her perseverance and love for everything that she does, Dr. Smernou remains involved with Telegnosis even though her work has now expanded into the arts. To that end, she maintains professional affiliation with the American Psychological Association and the American Environmental Design Research Association in order to remain up to date with developments in the field. Dr. Smernous considers the highlight of her career thus far to be the fact that there are questionnaires that she developed that remain in use today and have never been replaced.
In her artistic pursuits, Dr. Smernou’s work has been featured in a number of solo and group exhibitions including at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Naomi Silva Gallery, the Alan Avery Art Company, Lookout Mountain Gallery, the Seen Gallery, the Momus Gallery, the Center for Fine Art Photography and The Contemporary. She has additionally contributed to the Art & Science Collaborations exhibit at the New York Hall of Science, the corporate department of the Trinity Gallery and the Beltline Benefit of the International Interior Design Association. Furthermore, Dr. Smernou has published 11 books of photography, with such titles as “Arcadia,” “Monumental Nature: Utah & Arizona,” “Light Fields,” “Blooming Fields,” “Immersion: Yellowstone Tableaux,” “Mountain Vistas: Lake Lure and the Highlands,” “Santorini,” “Golden Green,” “Ascending Arabia,” “Mykonos: Emerald, Sapphire, Absolute White” and “In the Garden.”
For her exceptional talent and skill, Dr. Smernou has received a number of honors and accolades for her art. Spending time as president of the board of directors for the Atlanta Photography Group, she was notably the Collector Prints Featured Artist during an exhibition with the Atlanta Photography Group Gallery. In addition, pieces of hers have been included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and received high praise from The Georgia Review. More information about Dr. Smernou and her art can be found on her website, www.lilysmernou.com.
