Dr. Sarah Davis

Dr. Sarah Davis is an ecosystem ecologist with expertise in energy bioscience, biogeochemistry and eco-physiology. She quantifies ecosystem-level carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas fluxes in managed landscapes using experimental and modeling approaches. Dr. Davis received her PhD in Biology from West Virginia University in 2007 where she studied the long-term response of forest carbon sequestration to common harvesting practices. She continued her study of forest carbon balances and began researching bioenergy agro-ecosystems while in a post-doctoral position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and was then appointed in 2010 as a Bioenergy Analyst for the Energy Biosciences Institute, an interdisciplinary research program at UC Berkeley and UIUC. Dr. Davis contributes to the nascent field of energy bioscience by exploring opportunities for bioenergy development that will simultaneously enhance ecosystem services. Her work describes the environmental impacts and benefits of novel second-generation bioenergy production systems that include temperate perennial grasses, desert plants (Agave spp.), and woody feedstocks.

Dr. Davis also has a broad teaching background. Prior to her graduate research, she worked as the Assistant Director for the Regional Math/Science Center in Frostburg, MD, an alternative education program for underprivileged high school students, where she developed curricula for hands-on environmental science projects. She taught a variety of undergraduate biology and ecology courses while in graduate school and also as postdoctoral research assistant, and continued to lecture and advise graduate students as an Adjunct Assistant Professor even after being appointed as a Bioenergy Analyst at UIUC. Dr. Davis joined the Voinovich School faculty in the January of 2013.