Beyond the Fundamentals

Beyond the Fundamentals

PC Profile of Anna Davis OPC ’92

by Mark F. Bernstein OPC ’79

Of all the things Alice Davis taught her in 10th grade chemistry, Anna Davis OPC ’92 said that one line stands out.

“She used to say, ‘Everything I am telling you now is a lie,’” Davis (no relation) recalled. By that, her teacher meant that real-world chemistry is actually much more complicated than the simplified, introductory version that necessarily forms any high school curriculum. “She wanted you to understand the subject but also know that there was so much more to come.”

Anna Davis lives in Michigan with her husband, Jeff, and daughters Abigail, 8, and Lucy, 6–and their Newfoundland dog.

Anna Davis learned how true those words were, majoring in chemistry at Yale, earning a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, and conducting postdoctoral research as a National Institutes of Health fellow at Northwestern. For the last 10 years, she has worked as a research chemist and research and development (R&D) leader with Dow Chemical Company. In her current job, as R&D Strategy Leader, she helps Dow’s chief technology officer manage the company’s R&D portfolio ($1.6 billion as reported in 2016), developing and improving products for one of the largest chemical companies in the world.

Davis has spent her entire industrial career at Dow, based in Midland, Mich. She started in the lab as a senior chemist focusing on water-soluble polymers and renewable chemical feedstocks, eventually heading several large R&D projects and supervising teams of researchers. In April 2016, she moved into her current post, where she interacts across Dow’s multiple businesses, advancing materials and technology that impact consumer and industrial products across many markets.

Anna Davis, far left, was president of the Class of 1992, the first in the modern era to graduate girls. The other class officers are Catherine McGuckin, Todd Goulding, and Alexander Colley.

“When I came to interview here, I was amazed at the depth of science and the significant investment in cutting-edge methods,” Davis said. She attributed Dow’s dominant position in the market to its ability to translate that basic research into products that address important challenges and touch people across the globe. “It is an interesting approach to science,” she said. “A new product isn’t just something to be written up for a journal article. It has to be scaled and go to market.”

Research and development is critical for an international corporation such as Dow, with ties to so many different industries. “We’re introducing new products all the time and improving existing ones,” Davis explained. Having someone in a strategic role who understands the basic chemistry is critical.

A PC lifer, Davis was also in the first class of girls to graduate from Penn Charter and was president of her senior class. She admitted that her career could have gone in many different directions. “I was interested in everything!” she enthused, and not only in the classroom. Davis was a three-sport athlete at PC and played two sports (field hockey and lacrosse) in college. At first she thought she might major in English. “It’s very important that scientists have good communications skills,” she observed, “especially if you want to be in a decision-making position as an academic or at a company.”

Ultimately, though, Davis turned toward chemistry, thanks in large part to Alice Davis’s class. “I think she inspired lots of people in science,” Anna Davis said of her teacher. “It’s a lot easier to pursue science in university if you have a good foundation.” Indeed, Davis is proud that she had a strong enough foundation to take physical chemistry as a Yale freshman.

Anna Davis working in the lab in graduate school.

“I was good at it, and I could compete with people from all over the country.” Although Alice Davis Hon. 1689 must have been especially proud to see one of the first class of PC girls decide to continue studying chemistry, Anna Davis noted that her classmate Eric Ross OPC ’92 was also in that advanced freshman physical chemistry class at Yale. (Ross is now a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Colorado State University.) “She was an equal-opportunity inspirer.” In her current job, Davis must look at the big picture but said that she still feels connected to the basic research that goes on in the lab. “I miss being on the frontlines of discovery and innovation in the lab, but I’m still connected to it,” she said. “We wouldn’t be good at what we do if we didn’t have strong ties to the fundamentals.