Cristina E. Davis

Dr. Cristina Davis is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Davis (Davis, CA), and also is the campus Associate Vice Chancellor for Research.  Her research group focuses on creating miniature analytical sensor systems for mobile chemical detection platforms.  Final system integration of her devices yields analyzers that are specifically tailored for various high impact application areas including breath monitoring and diagnostics.
Prof. Davis earned her BS degree at Duke University with a double major in mathematics and biology. She completed her PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia focusing on novel biosensor research. She then worked on silicon-chip based biosensors during a postdoctoral fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University.  Along with a group of co-founders, she worked in industry in Switzerland to establish a start-up company developing MEMS-based screening platforms for the pharmaceutical industry, and their company was acquired by Molecular Devices Corporation.  She ultimately went on to become a Principal Member of the Technical Staff and the founding Group Leader of Bioengineering at The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (Cambridge, MA).  Having spent almost a half-decade in industry, she returned to academia in November 2005.  She served as a Member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) for the United States Air Force (2014-2018), and is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and National Academy of Inventors (NAI).  She is a Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor to a UC Davis affiliated start-up based on her research.  She was Chair of the International Association of Breath Research (IABR) from 2021-2023, and is currently the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Breath Research.