Her grandfather was William Morris Davis, a renowned geographer and geomorphologist and her great-great grandmother was Lucretia Mott, Quaker abolitionist and women’s rights activist.

[5] She returned to the Gila Expedition the following summer and worked on organizing the lab and record keeping,[6] before completing her Bachelor of Arts in history[1] in 1952, earning Algernon Sydney Sullivan Medallion for her leadership and academic accomplishments.

[6] Davis' next summer job before starting graduate school, was on the Smithsonian Institution's River Basin Surveys[6] and then she spent the next two years studying physical and cultural anthropology at the University of Oregon under Homer Barnett, serving as a research assistant to Bill Laughlin.

[9] Davis' first position after finishing school was as a cultural anthropologist working at the University of Iowa for the Institute for Agricultural Medicine.

[13] Davis' contribution to federal policy in the area of cultural and archaeological preservation has been widely recognized,[17] including her work behind the scenes coaching male colleagues in their presentations to legislatures.

[8] From 1974–1991, she taught graduate courses on public archaeology[13] and led the logistics, including organizing field excavation, laboratory processing, seminars and site surveys, for the Arkansas Training Program for Avocational Archaeologists to teach basic professional skills to enthusiasts.

[8] She retired in 1999 from the University of Arkansas as a full professor and created an endowment, the Davis Internship in Public Archeology, to assist students in earning graduate degrees in anthropology.

[21] Davis and Charles R. McGimsey were the first honorees and co-recipients of an award named in their honor by the Register of Professional Archaeologists for Distinguished Service.