His main research interest is in Lattice QCD, a non-perturbative approach to study field theories numerically. He mainly works within FASTSUM, an international collaboration which studies the property of hadrons under extreme conditions (high temperature and density). In Swansea, the FASTSUM members Dr Smecca works with are Professor Chris Allton, Professor Gert Aarts, Dr Tim Burns and Dr M. Naeem Anwar.
He is also involved in other projects like the study of inclusive semi-leptonic decays together with members of the ETM collaboration and the study of the glueball spectrum with Dr Davide Vadacchino from the University of Plymouth.