Dr. Davis has taught in the Post-Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Harvard University, the University of California at Davis, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University. Since 1992, he has also been an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Center for Latin American Studies where he has taught graduate-level courses on “Environment and Sustainable Development in Latin America,” “Poverty and Inequality in Latin America,” and “Poverty, Race and Ethnicity in Brazil and Mexico.”

Prior to taking up his current position at Georgetown, Dr. Davis was the Sector Manager for Social Development in the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Department of the Latin America and Caribbean Region at the World Bank (Sept. 1998-Aug. 2004). Dr. Davis also served as the Principal Sociologist in the central Social Development Department of the World Bank (1996-1998); as one of the founding members of a unit established in the central Environment Department to increase the social-soundness of World Bank-funded development projects (1993-1996); and, as a member of an inter-disciplinary unit responsible for reviewing and assessing World Bank policies relating to indigenous peoples, involuntary resettlement and environmental assessment (1991-1993).

Dr. Davis contributed to the 1992 World Development Report of the World Bank on Environment and Development and attended the International Conference on Environment and Development (“Earth Summit”) in Rio de Janeiro. He was also one of the co-founders and original members of the first environment unit in the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank where he served as the regional specialist on indigenous peoples issues between 1987 and 1991.

Prior to joining the World Bank in 1987, Dr. Davis was a Visiting Scholar at the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (1984-1986) where he conducted a study of international mechanisms for protecting the land rights of forest-dwelling indigenous populations in lowland South America. He was also the founder and Executive Director of the Anthropology Resource Center in Boston, Massachusetts (1975-1984) and of Indigena, Inc. in Berkley, California (1973-1975), the first hemispheric Indian documentation center in the United States.

Along with teaching graduate courses on "The Politics of Race and Ethnicity in Latin America" and "The Challenge of Social Development in Latin America", Dr. Davis has been assisting the Political Data Base of the Americas (PDBA) of the Center for Latin American Studies in preparing a new subsection titled “Indigenous Peoples, Democracy and Political Participation in Latin America.” He has also assisted the Center for Latin American Studies and a special Student Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in preparing two conferences in December 2004 and April 2005 on the topics of "Indigenous Peoples in Latin America: The Challenge of Poverty Reduction, Land Rights and Natural Resource Control" and “The Challenges of Democratic Governance, Ethnic Politics and Development in Bolivia and Peru.”

Since his retirement from the World Bank in 2004, Dr. Davis has also been assisting the World Bank Institute in preparing a training program for local mayors and indigenous members of local Community Development Councils in Guatemala on issues of Decentralization, Local Governance and Social Inclusion in Multicultural Societies. He has also assisted the World Bank's Social Development Department in preparing a study on Youth and Civic Engagement in Latin America; and, the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Department in preparing a report on Migration, Remittances and Ethnic Identity of Mayan Indian migrants from Guatemala to the United States.

Dr Davis is also currently preparing a major research project on Mayan Indian Migrant Home Town Associations in the United States in collaboration with Dr.Isaac Cohen, the former Director of the Office of the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Washington DC. The study they hope will lead to greater understanding of how the programs of these migrant Home Town Associations can lead to greater poverty reduction and economic development in the local communities in Guatemala where the members of these Home Town Associations were born and many of the members of their extended families currently live.

Another major research area that Dr. Davis is interested in are the relations between culture and development. Dr. Davis participated in two very important conferences between the World Bank and UNESCO in the late 1990s on ways of incorporating cultural diversity into development policies and programs. He also worked closely with the Ministry of Culture and Sports in Guatemala in organizing a National Congress on Cultural Policies in the year 2000; and, following this Congress, assisted in the preparation of a World Bank-financed Educational project in Guatemala which included a special component on Cultural Pluralism and Diversity. More recently, he has followed quite closely the recent work by UNESCO in the field of cultural diversity and development and has also been reviewing various initiatives by international development agencies and national governments in promoting cultural tourism, the protection of cultural patrimony, the establishment of local museums and cultural centers and the inclusion of cultural factors into health, education, environmental and other public policy and program initiatives in developing countries. He hopes to be able to contribute this cultural diversity perspective to the new University Initiative on International Development being prepared by the Mortara Center at Georgetown University.