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Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Jenna Davis

Faculty Affiliate
King Center on Global Development

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Doerr School of Sustainability

Senior Fellow
Woods Institute for the Environment

Jenna Davis is the faculty advisor to the Poop Group and director of Stanford's Program on Water, Health & Development. Her research and teaching focuses on the interface of engineered water supply and sanitation systems and their users in developing countries. With a background in public health, infrastructure planning, and environmental science & engineering, Davis explores questions related to interventions that trigger household investment in water, sanitation, and hygiene improvements; the features of water and sanitation services that users value and why; the health and economic impacts of improvements in water supply and sanitation; and the keys to long-term sustainability of installed infrastructure.

Over the past 15 years she has carried out applied research in more than a dozen developing countries, most recently in Zambia, Bangladesh and Uganda. Davis and her group (the "Poop Group") have extensive experience in designing and implementing primary data collection in resource-constrained environments across developing regions. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in public health, water, and sanitation planning in developing countries, and the theory and practice of sustainability. She holds an MSPH and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Innovations in Methods and Data
Urbanization and Infrastructure
Government and Institutions
Environment and Climate Change
Health
Gender and Equity