Tools to quantify ambient exposures to volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

Environmental exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) plays a key role in public health assessments, but there is a lack of easy to deploy tools to monitor this at scale. Dr. Cristina Davis' team developed novel tools to characterize these exposures, and deploying them to track VOC exposures during California wildfires. These measurements are poised to help inform future epidemiological studies in both the general population, and within specialty occupations such as firefighters.

Dr. Cristina Davis is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Davis (Davis, CA), and the campus' associate vice chancellor for research.

Davis' research group focuses on creating miniature analytical sensor systems for mobile chemical detection platforms. She 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.

Davis 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). 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.

This lecture will be on the CUNY SPH campus, but those who are unable to attend in person will be able to tune in to a livestream of the lecture via Zoom. All registrants should RSVP. Virtual attendees will receive the livestream link after registering.

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