Dr. Lance Davidson is a Professor and Wellington C. Carl Faculty Fellow of Bioengineering in the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering.  He is an Adjunct Faculty Member in Developmental Biology and Computational and Systems Biology at Pitt and in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.  Dr. Davidson is a Member of the Complex Biological Systems Group and a Member of the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Graduate Program – Molecular Genetics and Developmental Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Dr. Davidson received his BS degree in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and his MSc degree in Experimental Space Science at York University in Toronto, Canada, in 1986.  He earned his PhD in Biophysics at the University of California-Berkeley in 1995.  He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia in Cell and Developmental Biology.

Dr. Davidson works on the interfaces between engineering, physics, and biology. His group works closely with engineers, biologists, and clinicians to integrate molecular genetic details of morphogenesis with cell and tissue mechanics.

Dr. Davidson has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the American Heart Association.  His research interests include:

– Understanding how biomechanics drives morphogenesis across a number of size scales from subcellular generation of forces to the macroscopic forces and bulk tissue properties.
– Relating how mechanics is integrated with canonical signaling pathways to drive pattern formation and guide tissue self-assembly in embryogenesis, wound healing, and tissue regeneration.
– Utilizing the basic principles of development in order to drive self-assembly in naive tissues – providing new technologies for tissue engineers.

Dr. Davidson has received numerous awards and recognition for his educational and scientific achievements.  2019: NWO Sponsored Visiting Professor, University of Leiden, Netherlands. 2018: Elected to American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). 2013 : University of Pittsburgh Provost’s Innovation in Education Award, 2009: National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2006: named to “Faculty of 1000 – Biology.”

View a list of Dr. Davidson’s publications here.