Diane Kisich Davis

Diane Kisich Davis (she/her) has over twelve years of experience running a Science Education Resource Center at San Jose State University and over 30 years of management experience implementing multiple STEAM programs, grants and facilities. As an undergraduate at UC Davis, she studied zoology with a minor in education and conducted field work and rehabilitation programs with raptors. 

In graduate school she pulled together her interest in biology, science education, and scientific collections with a master’s degree in museum studies from San Francisco State University. At SFSU she gained skills in conserving, storing, and exhibiting collection artifacts.  As part of her thesis project, she created a biofact collection for education programs at the San Francisco Zoo. She also worked with a team of graduate students at SFSU to assemble an exhibition with artifacts from the Sutro Collection titled “Mummy Mysteries” in which the team presented x-rays of the mummies in the university collection with supporting artifacts for the public to view and learn about. 

When she was working on national and international STEM initiatives for NASA, she worked astronauts and with organizations such as the National Society for Black Physicists to participate in outreach events. She coordinated a large expedition to Zambia, Africa to webcast a total solar eclipse. For over a decade she led San Jose State University’s Science Education Resource Center, managing its day-to-day operations to serve tens of thousands of students at SJSU and beyond. She has lots of practical experience managing projects, supporting outreach, and handling the intricacies of university administration. Some examples are, coordinating collection pest management, barcoding, databasing, and providing access to collections and their information in classrooms and on websites. Her very diverse work experience ranges from raising wallabies and rehabilitating raptors, to writing science curriculum and project management of national & international science education initiatives for NASA, to making TV or radio appearances with animals and emceeing educational programs.