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Trisha Nell Davis (born May ???) is an American biochemist and the current Earl Davie/['ZymoGenetics]] Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington. Her early research focused on Calmodulin, though the primary focus of her lab has since shifted the the molecular machinery of cell division in budding yeast, especially the microtubule organizing center and the kinetochore.

Background and education
Trisha Davis received her BA in Computer Science and Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1976. She received her PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from from Yale University in 1983. She joined the University of Washington Department of Biochemistry in 1997 and became acting chair of the department in 2011. In 2013, she became the first female chair of the Department of Biochemistry.

Work and discoveries
Trisha Davis's post-doctoral research focused on Calmodulin in budding yeast After starting her own lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Davis discovered that Calmodulin performs an essential function in the spindle pole bodies of yeast, beginning the lab's gradual transition into the study of mitosis.

The Davis Lab has published extensively on the spindle pole body   and on the kinetochore. Much of the recent research, conducted in collaboration with the Asbury Lab at the University of Washington, uses biophysical techniques such as optical tweezers to quantify the microtubule-coupling activity of the kinetochore.

Dr. Davis is also the director of the Yeast Resource Center (YRC), a Biomedical Technology Research Center supported by the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of General Medical Studies.

Awards and recognition
In 2020, Dr. Davis was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.