Jenna Davis

Jenna Davis is the faculty advisor to the Poop Group and director of Stanford's Program on Water, Health & Development. Her research and teaching focuses on the interface of engineered water and sanitation systems and their users. With a background in public health, infrastructure planning, and environmental science & engineering, Davis explores questions related to interventions that trigger household investment in water, sanitation, and hygiene improvements; the features of water and sanitation services that users value and why; the health and economic impacts of improvements in water supply and sanitation; and the keys to long-term sustainability of installed infrastructure.

Over the past 20 years she has carried out applied research in more than two dozen countries, including most recently in India, Zambia, and Uganda. Davis and her group (a.k.a. the “poop group”) have extensive experience in designing and implementing primary data collection through household surveys and environmental sampling in resource-constrained environments. She teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in public health, water and sanitation planning, research design, and the theory and practice of sustainability.