Dr. James Davis
Posted on January 1, 2014 by Arts and Sciences
Dr. James Davis, Professor of Chemistry, is an internationally renowned expert on
ionic liquids, which are liquefied salts, which melt at low temperatures and which
can function as solvents. His research record has recently earned him the prestigious
title of Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Such recognition is not surprising.
Indeed, since 1998 Davis and his research group have published 100 papers and abstracts.
He says this published work has been “cited by others almost 10,000 times,” and his
group has “nine issued patents in the field and have a couple of others pending.”
Davis came to the University of South Alabama as an Assistant Professor in August
of 1995 after a previously teaching Chemistry at Brandeis University. When he started
at USA, there was no established research expectation for faculty members. Davis says
he was hired to “excel in teaching.” Soon, however, research requirements for faculty
members were established, and Davis had to set up a viable research program to achieve
tenure and promotion. According to Davis, he started research on salt compounds with
“very low melting points,” which dovetailed fortuitously with emergent research on
ionic liquids. His success soon followed. Indeed, Davis and his research team are
leaders in this field of chemistry.
According to Davis, he is “probably the most proud of the fact that [his] research
group has accomplished this high level of recognition and accomplishment despite being
only undergraduate in character. This sharply contrasts with the groups of [his]
(friendly) competitors, which usually have armies of Ph.D. students and some of which
have entire buildings of their own!”
Davis grew up in a small town [what is the name of the town?], where most job opportunities
were in chemistry. With deep roots in the area, Davis did not plan to move away. As
a result of the local jobs available, he chose chemistry as his major even though
his favorite academic subjects were history and English. His high school chemistry
teacher and his undergraduate Organic Chemistry professor at the University of North
Alabama deserve much credit for preparing Davis for success. Davis says his Organic
Chemistry professor encouraged him to go to graduate school, and Davis went on to
earn his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Vanderbilt University.
Since his graduate school days, Davis says so much has changed in the discipline of
chemistry: “New analytical tools and techniques have made it possible to study many
molecular species in ways never imaginable before. This has led to an explosion of
research, especially at the interfaces between chemistry and biology, chemistry and
physics, chemistry and materials and so on. “ Davis adds that today “more and more
scientists are chemists in practice, but more and more people are eschewing labels
as to the type of scientist they are—there is much more emphasis on the particulars
of what they are doing, as opposed to what box that work might be best put into.
At the end of the day, everything material/tangible in this universe is chemistry,
and it has an impact of unimaginable breadth on each of our lives.”
To illustrate the centrality of chemistry to our daily lives, Davis recommends that
people look at photos of crude oil and sand and then look at their cell phones. He
says, “Every bit of that phone started off in a barrel of oil or a handful of sand.
The people who turned it from the sand and oil into the materials from which the phone
is assembled were chemists.” Our shoes, clothing, and our cars are the result of the
work of chemists. “Arguably the only reason any of us isn't facing chronic starvation,”
Davis says, “is thanks to the chemists who developed fertilizers, pesticides, and
herbicides.”
In addition to the research Davis and his group perform, he says major ionic liquids
research is also occurring in Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. According
to Davis, his “little research group here at USA” leads “the world in several sub-areas
of ionic liquids research. One of those—the area of 'functionalized' or 'task-specific'
ionic liquids—was actually founded by [Davis’s group]. And it's really gratifying
to observe that about 25% of the circa 8,000 annual publications worldwide on ionic
liquids make use of our concept.”
In the near future, Davis plans to “to re-invent [his] research program—not abandon
what [they are] doing but, rather, find new ways to make it relevant to other emerging
areas of science.” He notes that there are nine ionic liquids researchers at USA in
Chemistry, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, so Davis
would like to see a national center on ionic liquids established on campus given this
concentration of ionic liquids researchers.
The success of science in determining causes for effects and in helping to find solutions
to complex natural and human-made problems accounts grants to science much prestige
in many sectors of the U. S. Davis, however, cautions against unquestioning blind
faith in the pronouncements of scientists. He says we should exercise a degree of
self-reliance and question and research what we can. According to Davis, “Truth will
always hold up to scrutiny. Don't be afraid to challenge the prevailing wisdom. When
one scientist says ‘A’, see if any are saying ‘B’. Compare. Who makes sense? Who
is on the up-and-up, and who is being self-serving? To quote a source wiser than me
‘Prove all things; hold fast to those that are good.’”
When not in his classroom or his lab, Davis likes to spend time with his family. His
wife is Patricia Davis, the Associate Director of the First Year Advising Center at
USA. They have two daughters and a son. Davis loves Italian and Indian cuisines, and
he likes to unwind watching television shows such as "Stranger Things," "Shut Eye,"
“Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon” and watching college basketball and college
football.