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Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering

Jenna Davis

Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment

Jenna Davis is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. She also heads the Stanford Program on Water, Health & Development, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Water. Professor Davis’s research and teaching focuses on the intersection between water, health, and economic development, with particular emphasis on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).With a background in public health, infrastructure planning, and environmental science & engineering, Professor Davis conducts intensive, field-based primary data and environmental sample collection, coupled with complementary modeling and managed experiments. Her research group develops and tests the impact of water-related interventions on service quality, health, and livelihoods; they have also developed water treatment and sanitation technologies to address persistent gaps in service to vulnerable populations. Professor Davis has conducted research in more than 20 countries, most recently including Zambia, Uganda and Bangladesh. In her efforts to help build global research capacity she has trained more than 1000 individuals at universities, public agencies, and NGOs in LMICs. At Stanford Professor Davis teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in public health, water and sanitation planning and policy, and interdisciplinary research design.