Her study, Women's Views: The Narrative Stereograph in Nineteenth-Century America, was published in 2015 by the University of New Hampshire Press and has since become a college textbook. Davis has published and spoken internationally, most recently for Concordia University's annual Speaking of Photography lecture. She has received a Henry Luce/ACLS fellowship and Schact grants (Sage College) for her scholarship. She is also the author of a study on the male nude in photography and three books of poetry. She has held National Endowment for the Arts and Pennsylvania Council of the Arts fellowships for her poetry and nonfiction.