Maggie R Davis

Bio

Leveraging insights into biomass markets and climate science, Maggie Davis leads energy transitions R&D on low-carbon pathways that meet US energy needs at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Specifically, she works at the intersection of basic and applied sciences to model agricultural and forestry scenarios that minimize risk to producers and maximize nature-based solutions. She is passionate about data interoperability, extending the impact of climate data to agriculture, forestry, and energy industries for improved resource planning.

Under the Buildings and Transportation Science Division (BTSD), Davis is a researcher in Mobility and Energy Transitions Analysis (META), working with an interdisciplinary group of decision-scientists for decarbonization strategies. Long-term (multi-decade) changes for a net-zero energy society will incorporate new systems and financial mechanisms, that help people make decisions for decarbonized households and communities. Sound science, accurate measurement and verification of the effectiveness of these strategies are essential. Davis is therefore building tools to assess whether nature-based solution markets can be one of the enabling strategies for 2030-50 sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) & marine goals. This research also explores finance and business models for this energy sector, and monitoring, mitigation & verification (MMV) considerations embedded in standards.   

Her leadership on data management across program offices and from a global network of sensors, also contributes to international open-source and data interoperability communities. Davis contributes to the leadership of the Climate Change Science Institute and chairs the Society of American Foresters Bioenergy, Climate Change & Carbon Working Group. She also contributes to employee retention for Women in Science and Engineering at ORNL.

Professional Experience

R&D Scientist, Mobility and Energy Transitions Analysis Group  (Jan 2023 – present)

Researching interdisciplinary decarbonization strategies using decision science; leading R&D research on biomass availability for low-carbon strategies to meet US energy needs. Highlights include: Publications: Applied Energy (IF 11.446); 2. Intl. J. of Enviro. Res. & Public Health (IF 4.614) &:

• Lead: modeling and tool development to inform deployment of bioenergy crops for specific regions with known nature-based solutions (NbS) markets that can enable cost competitiveness, and benefit marginalized communities. 
• Lead: forest-based biomass resource potential (economic assessment), DOE’s next “Billion Ton” report

R&D Scientist, Data Science & Integration (2021 –2023)

Leading data management at ARM, a DOE National User Facility, and leading R&D research on biomass availability for low-carbon strategies to meet US energy needs. Highlights include: 3 Publications, 1 dataset &:

• Lead: Modernized biomass resource assessment POLYSYS partial equilibrium model for high-performance computing and moved manual analysis of data to automated open-source workbooks
• Manager: team of 3 responsible for all metadata for ARM data: >2 PB spanning 30 years: Applied knowledge of statistics, mathematics, data modeling and high-performance data architectures, and advanced computing to integrate and prepare data

R&D Associate Scientist, ARM & Bioenergy Resources & Engineering Systems      (2016 – 2021)

Modernized ARM metadata management, led resource modeling and modernization of models on HPC, standards development and bioenergy sustainability assessments. Highlights include: 10 Publications, 8 datasets &:

• Lead, Billion Ton 2016: Volume 1 Lead author and lead energy crop and agricultural residues modeler (POLYSYS); Volume 2 author for Land Management (Ch 3) evaluating the impacts of biomass production
• Lead, BioKDF Sustainability website: Primary content developer, design
• Lead author on Regulation of Genetically Modified Trees, Utilization of Woody Biomass for Energy, Committee on Forest Policy, Society of American Foresters

R&D Assistant Scientist, Resource modeling, International trade (2014-2016)

Supported 2 projects for assessments of sustainability and lead modeler on dedicated energy crops for BT16. Highlights include:

• Secretariat (Working Group on Indirect Effects, ISO13065- Sustainability of Bioenergy): International Standards Organization | Geneva, CH; 2012-01-01 to 2015-09-30: Addressed key barriers, e.g., related to sustainability assessment methods, food security, land-use change (LUC), reference case and carbon measurement; Led final report, annotated bibliography, and 20 international webinars
• Contributing investigator for report, “Brief Perspectives on Expanding Advanced Energy Sources in Brazil: Part 1:  Biofuels and Bioenergy” 2015.

Awards

• Science Serving Society, 2016.
• ARM Service Award, 2020, 2021
• Emerging Leader Award, ORNL Women’s Alliance Council’s, March 2023

Education

B.A., Economics and Geography, University of Tennessee, TN, USA (2007)

M.S., Forestry Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, University of Tennessee, TN, USA  (2011)

• International research: Eucalyptus, Minas Gerais Brazil (Jan-Nov, 2010)

Ongoing:

• Data Science & other training  (2016 to present):
  • Continuing Forestry Education (CFE) SAF: Enhancing the precision of broad-scale forest growing stock and stock change estimates with small area estimation (2021); Data Science for Forestry (2018)
  • Python (SciPy), annually since 2017
  • Disciplined Agile Scrum Master training (Project Management Institute), 2020
  • Modeling trade of bioproducts, Agricultural Economics (University of Tennessee)
• PhD -accepted into program- in Systems Engineering, Colorado State University (start: August 2023)

Professional Service

• Baker Center Affiliate, University of TN
• Chair, Bioenergy, Climate Change & Carbon (E3) WG: Society of American Foresters| Washington, DC, US; 2022 -Present.
• Chair, ESTD Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) until January 2023 and advisor to chair January-December 2023.
• Invited delegate: Women’s Forest Congress (October 2022).
• Lead, Research Theme, Bioenergy, Climate Change & Carbon (E3) Working Group, Society of American Foresters| Washington, DC, US, 2020-2021. Chair the special session, Data for bioproduct assessments in November of 2021

Professional Affiliations

AAAS,

Society of American Foresters (SAF),

American Geophysical Union (AGU),

ASTM

Specialized Equipment

DATASETS

1. Davis, Maggie R. 2021. Integrated land management scenarios: regional demand of bioethanol for select counties (single refinery) and crops. https://doi.org/10.11578/1797943. Select visualizations available.
2. Davis, Maggie R., 2020. RegionalDemand-CornStover_INL_BT16BC1030-40-50 (data available 6/19/20) doi 10.11578/1633888
3. Davis, Maggie R., 2020. stovertillage2019-bc1040-060 (data available 6/9/20) doi 10.11578/1632327
4. Langholtz, Matthew; Busch, Ingrid; Kasturi, Abishek; Hilliard, Mike R.; McFarlane, Joanna; Tsouris, Costas; Mukherjee, Srijib; Omitaomu, Olufemi A.; Kotikot, Susan M.; Allen-Dumas, Melissa R.; DeRolph, Christopher R.; Davis, Maggie R; Paris, Esther S.          Data and interactive visualization for "The economic accessibility of CO2 sequestration through bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) in the US" submitted to the journal "Land", 2020 (data available 8/6/20) doi 10.11578/1647453
5. Davis, M. 2018. Dataset: NewBio_SwgMxgWillowOnly: Price Scenarios at $54 and $119 simulated for Switchgrass, Miscanthus and Willow production from 2017 to 2040. Feedstock Production, Supporting Data available on the BioKDF 01/01/2018. DOI 10.11578/1468424
6. Davis, MR. CH Hellwinkel, L. Eaton, MH Langholtz, A. Turhollow, C Brandt, A Myers, 2016. Agricultural Baseline (BL0) scenario of the 2016 Billion-Ton Report (data available 7/13/16) doi 10.11578/1337884
7. Davis, MR. CH Hellwinkel, L. Eaton, MH Langholtz, A. Turhollow, C Brandt, A Myers, 2016. Base-Case 1% Yield Increase (BC1), All Energy Crops scenario of the 2016 Billion Ton Report (data available 7/13/16) doi 10.11578/1340497
8. Davis, MR. CH Hellwinkel, L. Eaton, MH Langholtz, A. Turhollow, C Brandt, A Myers, 2016. 2% Yield Increase (HH2), All Energy Crops scenario of the 2016 Billion Ton Report (data available 7/13/16) doi 10.11578/1340541
9. Davis, MR. CH Hellwinkel, L. Eaton, MH Langholtz, A. Turhollow, C Brandt, A Myers, 2016. 3% Yield Increase (HH3), All Energy Crops scenario of the 2016 Billion Ton Report (data available 7/13/16) doi 10.11578/1340543
10. Davis, MR. CH Hellwinkel, L. Eaton, MH Langholtz, A. Turhollow, C Brandt, A Myers, 2016. 4% Yield Increase (HH4), All Energy Crops scenario of the 2016 Billion Ton Report (data available 7/13/16) doi 10.11578/1340546

Other Publications