Dr. Todd Davidson
Dr. F. Todd Davidson is the COO of IdeaSmiths where he has been a Managing Partner since 2018. He is also the Director of the Center for Applied Engineering and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil & Mechanical Engineering at the United States Military Academy. Dr. Davidson has taught courses on fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and energy technology and policy during his teaching career at both West Point and the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Davidson’s research focuses on the technical, financial, security and policy challenges related to the interdependent nature of energy systems, including transportation, energy storage, renewable resources, water, food, and oil and gas. Dr. Davidson’s work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Applied Energy, Desalination, Environmental Research Letters, and the Journal of Turbomachinery. He has also authored publications in national outlets, including Fortune, TheHill, Forbes, ASME Magazine, Bloomberg, and The Conversation. Dr. Davidson has been called upon as an expert to advise the Texas General Land Office, has been interviewed by national media, including NPR’s Marketplace and The New York Times, and testified before the Committee of Agriculture, Water & Rural Affairs within the Texas State Senate. Before joining academia, Dr. Davidson was the CEO & co-founder of nCarbon, Inc., a startup focused on the development of advanced energy storage devices. He started his career as a systems engineer working for Raytheon where he worked on four different missile defense products. Dr. Davidson holds a B.S. in Engineering Science from Trinity University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UT Austin.