Michael
Davis
M.D., Ph.D.
Leadership Role
Deputy Center Director - Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)
Michael Davis, M.D., Ph.D., is the Deputy Center Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). In this role, Dr. Davis serves on CDER’s senior leadership team and supports the Center Director by providing executive leadership on strategic initiatives that advance CDER's mission to deliver safe, effective and high-quality medications.
Dr. Davis completed a Medical Scientist Training Program (MD, PhD in Pharmacology) at Case Western Reserve University, psychiatric residency training at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and a clinical research fellowship at the West Los Angeles VA Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC); his research interests focused on the development of novel therapeutics for schizophrenia. Following completion of his fellowship in 2014, he was a Staff Psychiatrist at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, TX, and an Assistant Professor in the Baylor College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Davis is licensed to practice medicine and is board certified in Psychiatry.
From 2016–2022, Dr. Davis served in CDER’s Office of New Drugs (OND) as a Clinical Team Leader in the Division of Psychiatry, where he led multidisciplinary teams in the review of drugs for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, as well as contributed to regulatory science and policy development. In this role, he received numerous honors and awards, including the Division of Psychiatry Annual Awards for Individual Supervisor and for Collaboration, and the FDA Outstanding Service Award for leadership in advancing science in psychiatric drug development. Dr. Davis also presented nationally and internationally on regulatory topics such as estimands, digital health technologies, and issues related to development of psychedelic-based therapies. After leaving the Agency in 2022, Dr. Davis served from 2022-2025 as Chief Medical Officer for a nonprofit medical research organization developing psychedelic drugs for the treatment of major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2025, Dr. Davis returned to the Agency in his current role.