Steven J. Davis is an earth system scientist at the University of California, Irvine's Department of Earth System Science and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering^[1] He is a highly cited researcher.^[2]

Davis received his undergraduate education at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, his Juris Doctor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and his doctorate from Stanford University.^[3] From 2001-2004, Davis worked as a corporate lawyer at Gray, Cary, Ware & Freidenrich, LLC in Palo Alto, California advising venture-backed start-ups in Silicon Valley (now part of DLA Piper). He received his PhD in Geological and Environmental Sciences in 2008 from Stanford University.^[4] He then worked as a post-doctoral researcher with Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology from 2008 to 2012.^[5]

Davis researches embedded emissions of carbon dioxide and air pollution in international trade,^[6][7][8] energy systems,^[9] carbon lock-in,^[10][11] the quantities and causes of greenhouse gas emissions,^[12][13] and the interactions of agriculture and the global carbon cycle.^[14][15]

In 2015, Davis and his co-authors were awarded the Cozzarelli Prize by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for a paper they published on the role of China's international trade and air pollution in the United States.^[16] In 2018, Davis received the James B. Macelwane Medal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for his contributions in developing a science that links global climate change and society, and was simultaneously elected AGU Fellow.

• Davis, Steven J. et al (2018). "Net-zero emissions energy systems", Science, 360. 1419.
• Feng, Kuishuang, Davis, Steven J., Sun, Laixiang and Hubacek, Klaus. (2015). "Drivers of the U.S. CO2 emissions 1997-2013", Nature Communications, 6. 7714.
• Shearer, Christine, Bistline, John, Inman, Mason, and Davis, Steven J. (2014). "The effect of natural gas supply on U.S. renewable energy and CO2 emissions", Environmental Research Letters, 9. 094008.
• Lin, Jintai, Pan, Da, Davis, Steven J. et al.. (2014). "China's international trade and air pollution in the United States", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (5). 1736-1741.
• Davis, Steven J. and Socolow, Robert. (2014). "Commitment accounting of CO2 emissions", Environmental Research Letters, 9. 084018.
• Davis, Steven J., Peters, Glen P. and Caldeira, Ken. (2011). "The supply chain of CO2 emissions", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (45). 18554-18559.
• Davis, Steven J., Matthews, D. and Caldeira, Ken. (2010). "Future CO2 emissions and climate change from existing energy infrastructure", Science, 329. 1330-1335.
• Burney, Jennifer, Davis, Steven J. and Lobell, David. (2010). "Greenhouse gas mitigation by agricultural intensification", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (26). 12052-12057.
• Davis, Steven J. and Caldeira, Ken. (2010). "Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (12). 5687-5693.

Davis co-founded two organizations related to climate change, the Climate Conservancy, a group working to assess and label consumer goods with their carbon footprints,^[17] and Near Zero, a non-profit that "...provides credible, impartial, and actionable assessment with the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to near zero".^[18]

Davis is on the editorial board of Environmental Research Letters.^[19]