AtlanTICC Alliance

Brian Davison is the Chief Scientist for Systems Biology and Biotechnology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr Davison recently served two years as the Director of Life Sciences Division. He was previously a Distinguished Researcher & BioChemical Engineering Research Group leader. In his twenty years at ORNL he has performed biotechnology research in a variety of areas including bioconversion of renewable resources (ethanol, organic acids, solvents), non-aqueous biocatalysis, systems analysis of microbes (cultivation and proteomics), biofiltration of vocs, mixed cultures, immobilization of microbes and enzymes, metal biosorption, and extractive fermentations. If there is a theme connecting his work, it is at the interface of solid, liquid, and gas phases between biocatalysts and their environments. This has resulted in over 90 publications and six patents. He led a multilab team which received an R&D100 Award for “Production of Chemicals from Biologically Derived Succinic Acid,” in 1997. Brian received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and his B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering, from the University of Rochester. He co-chaired the 15th to 26th Symposia on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals and served as editor of Proceedings in Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol., (1994 – 2005). The Symposium grew from 150 to over 400 attendees during these twelve years (ten with Mark Finkelstein). He is the Chair of the ORNL Institutional Biosafety Committee from 2001 to present. He was just named a Fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), 2006. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering, at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville where he supervised including one Ph.D. student and four Masters students.