  We present our results on meson and nucleon screening masses in finite
temperature two flavour QCD using smeared staggered valence quarks and
staggered thin-link sea quarks with different lattice spacings and quark
masses. We investigate optimization of smearing by observing its effects on the
infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) components of gluon and quark fields. The
application of smearing to screening at finite temperature also provides a
transparent window into the mechanism of the interplay of smearing and chiral
symmetry. The improved hadronic operators show that above the finite
temperature cross over, T_c, screening masses are consistent with weak-coupling
predictions. There is also evidence for a rapid opening up of a spectral gap of
the Dirac operator immediately above T_c.
