Robin L. Davisson, Cornell professor of biomedical sciences, was elected to the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences during the academy's annual membership meeting, Sept. 20, in New York City.

Founded in 1817, the NYAS is an independent, nonprofit organization with more than 25,000 members in 140 countries committed to advancing science and building scientific communities.

Davisson has a joint appointment in biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine on the Ithaca campus and in cell and developmental biology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Prior to Cornell, Davisson was associate professor of anatomy and cell biology and radiation oncology at the University of Iowa from 1998 until 2006, when she came to Cornell with her husband, President David Skorton.

Davisson's research focuses on the basic mechanisms of function, control and signaling in the cardiovascular system in health and disease. Her investigations employ the interdisciplinary approach of "functional genomics," a new endeavor at the interface of classical physiology and molecular genetics. She has published numerous research and review articles and book chapters and has given invited presentations throughout the United States as well as in South America, Europe and Asia.

Davisson earned her bachelor's (1988) and master's (1991) degrees in psychology and her doctorate in pharmacology (1994), all from the University of Iowa.