Kelvin J. A. Davies was appointed Interim Vice Provost in spring 2023. He is a USC Distinguished Emeritus Professor and was formerly the James E. Birren Chair and Executive Vice Dean (Dean of Faculty & Academic Affairs and Dean of Research) at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and Director of the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center. He pioneered the study of protein oxidation, proteolysis and adaptive gene expression during adaptation to oxidative stress. He discovered the mechanism of action of the highly successful anticancer chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin (Adriamycin™) and the cause for its cardiac toxicity at high doses. He uncovered the role of free radicals in mitochondrial adaptation to exercise. He discovered five stress- genes including RCAN1 which regulates calcineurin and whose mis-regulation contributes to Alzheimer disease, Down syndrome, and Huntington disease. Educated at London and Liverpool Universities, the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, and the University of California at Berkeley, he was previously a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, and Albany Medical College.