He joined UVa as an assistant professor of Computer Science in 1982, becoming associate professor in 1988 and professor in 1998. He is Associate Editor for ACM's Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems. He has directed six Ph.D. theses and is the author or co-author of one book and over 70 papers. In compiler construction, he investigates the development of easily retargetable, highly optimizing compilers. Earlier research developed an intermediate representation, RTL, which is the basis for two widely distributed and widely used retargetable, optimizing compilers, the GNU C compiler and vpo.
Current work focuses on developing compilers and tools for embedded systems.
In the past decade, it has become clear that the performance of a computer system depends on both the hardware and software. Consequently, design of high-performance computer systems depends on the interaction of hardware and software. Little is gained by including architectural enhancements that the compiler cannot exploit. Davidson's research investigates this interaction with a goal of developing effective solutions. 298-310, January 1995.