Anne-Christine Davis

Anne-Christine Davis is a British theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge. She was the first woman to be appointed a professor in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University. Her research mainly concerns cosmology, astrophysics and string theory.

Davis was a graduate student at Bristol University, under the supervision of W. Noel Cottingham. She obtained her doctorate in 1975. Following postdoctoral positions at Durham University and Imperial College London, Davis worked overseas at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland (where she became the first female theoretician) and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Since 1983 she has held positions at DAMTP, Cambridge, and King's College, Cambridge. From 2002 to 2013 she was Professor of Theoretical Physics at DAMTP and from 2013 to 2018 she held the "Professorship of Mathematical Physics (1967)". She has been a member of the General Board and the Council of the University of Cambridge.

Davis' recent work has focused on particle cosmology, in particular investigating the chameleon theory and its relation to f(R) theory.

Early life
Davis first became interested in science at the age of five. "When I first started school, the teacher put flash cards up: A is for apple, B is for banana, C is for I can't remember what, to teach us all the alphabet. Fine, okay. Then she did it again. And I thought, 'That's strange. She's done that once. We all know this now, why's she doing it again?' And the teacher picked this up, that I had learnt my alphabet first time round, and gave me a bucket of water and a pipette to play with. And I learnt a little bit about specific gravity. And I thought, 'Oh, I want to be a scientist. This is fun.'"

She then became the only woman at her school to pursue A-levels in mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

Positions by year

 * 2014 University Gender Equality Champion for STEMM subjects
 * 2013–2018 Professor of Mathematical Physics (1967), DAMTP, Cambridge University
 * 2002-2013 Professor of Theoretical Physics, DAMTP, Cambridge University
 * 1996-2000 Reader in Theoretical Physics, DAMTP
 * 1995-1996 ADR—DAMTP
 * 1988-1995 College Teaching Officer, Kings College Cambridge
 * 1983-1988 Research Council Advanced Fellow, DAMTP Cambridge University
 * 1982-1983 Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA
 * 1980-1982 Fellow, Theory Division, CERN, Geneva
 * 1978-1980 Postdoctoral research associate in theoretical physics, Blackett Physics Laboratory Imperial College, London
 * 1976-1978 Postdoctoral research associate in theoretical physics, Mathematics Department, Durham University

Recognition
In 2009 she was elected to the Academia Europaea. In 2019 she won the Institute of Physics Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize.