G. Leah Davis, Ph.D.

Chief of Staff

Leah has twenty years of work and management experience in the public and nonprofit sectors. A former senior management analyst for the City of Atlanta, Department of Watershed Management’s Office of Performance and Accountability, Leah led performance review projects to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations; performed research and statistical analysis; developed and oversaw metrics and benchmarking; and carried out continuous process improvement initiatives. Her hard work and dedication earned her the Department of Watershed Management Commissioner’s Award in 2018.

A seasoned professional, Leah served as a project lead for the Center for Digital Inclusion, University of Illinois, on the Inclusive Gigabit Libraries Project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services as part of the U.S. Ignite initiative of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation. She was contracted by ASR Analytics, LLC as a junior project and field lead in the completion of the federal evaluation of President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration under the U.S. Department of Commerce. Leah has served in leadership and management roles, overseeing programs at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Tuskegee, Alabama, as well as Southern Illinois Healthcare in East St. Louis, IL, where she completed a fellowship in health administration awarded by the National Association of Community Health Centers.

Leah holds a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from Indiana University where she completed majors in Public Management and Policy Analysis and a minor in Information Science. She holds a M.P.A. with a concentration in Health Administration from Auburn University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Georgia. Leah is a graduate of the 2021 Class of Leadership DeKalb. She serves on the United Way of Greater Atlanta DeKalb Advisory Board and is a member of the Emory Healthcare Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Community Engagement Team.