Helen C. Davies, Ph.D.

Professor of Microbiology
Academic Coordinator of Microbiology
Ombudsman for Medical Students and Graduate Students

Office Address:
Department of Microbiology
Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
203B Johnson Pavilion
3610 Hamilton Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6076

TEL 215-898-8733
FAX 215-898-9557
daviesh@mail.med.upenn.edu

Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Brooklyn College Alumni Association Post 50th Alumni to Helen Conrad Davies in recognition of a distinguished career and outstanding achievements which have contributed to the living history of Brooklyn College; September 18, 2011

RESEARCH SUMMARY

Dr. Davies serves as the academic coordinator for the Department of Microbiology, and has served as Associate Dean for Students and Housestaff Affairs in the School of Medicine. Her research interest is in the biochemistry of prokaryotic organisms, with particular focus on bacterial energetics, electron transfer, and the cytochrome system. Her educational focus is on the recruitment, mentoring, and retention of minority group members and women in biomedical careers, and she is available for career counselling for medical, graduate, and undergraduate students. She has continuously served as Ombudsman for Medical Students since 2000.

For her work, she was selected the 1999 recipient of the Lifetime Mentor Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2003 she was elected to rank of Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2005 she received the Alice Evans Award of the American Society of Microbiology for her excellence in microbiology. She has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Women of Color at Penn. Teaching is very important to her and she has received 39 major teaching awards, including Penn’s All-University Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching; one of the two Distinguished Basic Science Educator Awards, awards given in the Medical School; and the Trustees Council of Penn Women’s Award for Generations of Academic Excellence. ” Nationally, she is the first woman to ever receive the American Medical Student Association’s National Excellence in Teaching Award (March, 2001). She was interviewed by National Public Radio and Voice of America, (May 2001) on her innovative ways of teaching about emerging infectious diseases, and was an invited speaker on this topic at the 2002 and 2004 National meetings of the American Society for Microbiology. She has received the AOA Robert J. Glazer Distinguished Teacher Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges in 2006 – a national award presented to four medical school faculty members annually.

The first woman faculty member to be designated a Master of a College House at the University of Penn, she lives with 450 undergraduate students, many of whom have chosen to live in her House because of their expressed interest in either the field of infectious diseases or the history and sociology of women in science.