Aaron P Davis

Dr Aaron Davis is Senior Research Leader of Plant Resources at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK). His work on coffee spans more than two decades, and includes the naming and classification of coffee species, molecular (DNA) studies, conservation, climate change and resilience, and sustainable development. He is the leading authority on coffee species and has travelled widely in Africa and Madagascar to study coffee in the wild.

Recent projects include Building a Climate Resilient Coffee Economy for Ethiopia (including The Coffee Atlas of Ethiopia), an in-depth study on the risks and opportunities for the Ethiopian coffee sector in an era of accelerated climate change, and Mainstreaming Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Resilience at Yayu Biosphere Reserve (Ethiopia), looking at the interplay between specialty coffee, livelihoods, biodiversity conservation and climate resilience at the community level.

More recently he has published research on the value of wild coffee species (and diversity) for the sustainability of the global coffee sector. Ongoing and new work includes the development of climate resilience methods and the use of wild coffee species for the development of next-generation coffee crops.