Designated a National Book Award Finalist for, When Smoke Ran Like Water, 2002, Basic Books, Davis heads up the world’s first Center on Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.  The multidisciplinary center includes experts in medicine, basic research, engineering and public policy, who will develop cutting-edge studies to identify the causes of cancer and propose policies to reduce the risks of the disease.  Honored for her research and public policy work by various national and international groups, Davis is an Honorary Professor, London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Expert Advisor to the World Health Organization.

President Clinton appointed the Honorable Dr. Davis to the newly established Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, (1994-99) an independent executive branch agency that investigates, prevents, and mitigates chemical accidents. As the former Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services, she has counseled leading officials in the U.S., United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank. She also was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at The Yeshiva University and Stern College for 1996-97 and Scholar in Residence and Executive Director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology at the U.S. National Research Council, of the National Academy of Science, 1983-93.

Dr. Davis holds a B.S. in physiological psychology and a M.A. in sociology from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed a Ph.D. in science studies at the University of Chicago, as a Danforth Foundation Graduate Fellow and a M.P.H. in epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University, as a Senior National Cancer Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow. She has also authored more than 170 publications, in books and journals ranging from Scientific American to the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Lancet, and the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, and has also written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other mass media outlets.

A member of both the American Colleges of Toxicology and of Epidemiology, Dr. Davis is also Visiting Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. In addition, she is a Visiting Scientist of the Strang Cornell Cancer Prevention Center of the Rockefeller University and Scientific Advisor to the Women's Environment and Development Organization. She also founded the International Breast Cancer Prevention Collaborative Research Group, an organization dedicated to exploring the causes of breast cancer. She currently serves on the Board of the Climate Institute, and the Coalition of Organizations on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Earthfire Institute.  

Dr. Davis' research has been widely acknowledged by different communities. The Lemelson Center for Invention and Innovation of the Smithsonian Institution honored her as an innovator on the environment and invited her to give a distinguished lecture in 1998. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations Climate Convention tapped her to serve as a Lead Author on their assessment of climate mitigation policies and she co-chaired an Expert Workshop on assessing the public health and other impacts of climate policies sponsored by the OECD, IPCC, EPA, and Resources for the Future. She received the Woman of Distinction Award from the Conservative Judaism's Women's League and was recognized by the Noreen T. Holland Foundation for "leadership in advancing the understanding of potential environmental causes of breast cancer." She was also honored by the Betty Ford Comprehensive Cancer Center and the American Cancer Society with the Breast Cancer Awareness Award, and was commended by the Director of the National Cancer Institute for Outstanding Service and has recently been appointed a Global Environmental advisor to Newsweek magazine.

She recently was the recipient of a Women’s Leadership Exchange Compass Award, presented by OPEN:  The Small Business Network from American Express, for breaking the paradigms of how women are perceived over the last ten years and is the founder of the Devra Lee Davis Charitable Foundation.