Bob Davis joined the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering faculty in January 2023 as a scholar in residence, but he is no stranger to CU Boulder or the department. His CU position is part-time, as Davis also continues in his role as chief lighting research engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
Davis earned both his BAE degree and his MS degree in architectural engineering at Penn State University. He later earned his PhD in cognitive psychology at CU Boulder in 2006.
He was a full-time CEAE faculty member from 1998-2007, then re-joined the CEAE department in 2019 as an adjoint professor in architectural engineering, where he supported educational activities focused on professional audiences, such as the professional graduate certificate in architectural lighting and programs offered through the Rocky Mountain Lighting Academy.
At PNNL his responsibilities include serving as technical director of the solid-state lighting program and leading several human-factors research efforts. In addition to his prior role as a faculty member for CU Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied Science, he has also held a faculty position at RPI’s Lighting Research Center. His experience includes working in engineering and marketing at a lamp manufacturer and leading the product development and engineering teams at a luminaire manufacturer. He is also a fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society.