Rate My Professor Sarah Davies

Sarah Davies is an Associate Professor of Biology at Boston University and head of the Davies Marine Population Genomics Lab. She received her B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Victoria, M.Sc. in Marine Biology from the University of Calgary in 2009, and Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. After completing her Ph.D., she served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and as a Simons Foundation Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation in 2016. She joined Boston University as an Assistant Professor of Biology in 2017 and advanced to Associate Professor. As affiliated faculty with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability and a Hariri Faculty Affiliate, her career includes mentoring postdoctoral researchers, Ph.D. students, master's students, and undergraduates, as well as teaching courses on marine physiology, climate change, and bioinformatics.

Davies specializes in ecological and evolutionary genomics, symbiosis, ecophysiology, and marine biology, investigating mechanisms of acclimation, adaptation, and dispersal in reef-building corals and their algal symbionts amid climate change. Her work integrates field experiments, environmental monitoring, physiological assays, and large-scale genomic and transcriptomic analyses to explore symbiosis dynamics, immune regulation, genetic diversity, thermal tolerance, and implications for coral conservation and restoration. A core member of the Genetics Working Group of the Coral Restoration Consortium, she holds grants from the National Science Foundation and NOAA, along with awards such as the National Academy of Sciences Gulf Research Program Early-Career Fellowship and the 2025 Simons Foundation Pivot Fellowship. Key publications include "Genomic determinants of coral heat tolerance across latitudes" (Science, 2015), "Considerations for maximizing the adaptive potential of restored coral populations in the western Atlantic" (Ecological Applications, 2019), "Promoting inclusive metrics of success and impact to dismantle a discriminatory reward system in science" (PLoS Biology, 2021), "A framework for understanding gene expression plasticity and its influence on stress tolerance" (Molecular Ecology, 2021), and "The fourth global coral bleaching event: where do we go from here?" (Coral Reefs, 2024).