Will Davis

Dr. Will Davis an architectural historian broadly interested in plant-human interaction. Recent research has considered histories of agribusiness, resettlement, resistance, and the plantation system through the material records of architecture and land.

At the Academy of Architecture, Davis is Group Leader of the SNSF Ambizione project "Voyaging Vapors: Plant Histories of Plantation Architectures" (2024–2028, project number 216182), hosted by the Institute of the History and Theory of Art and Architecture (ISA); the Institute of Urban and Landscape Studies (ISUP); and the Professorship for Theory of Urbanization and Urban Environments (Prof. Roesler).

Davis completed his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2021, and the resulting dissertation, Palm Politics: Warfare, Folklore, and Architecture was awarded the Society of Architectural Historians David B. Brownlee dissertation prize for outstanding work in architectural history in 2022.

Prior to joining USI, Davis has held positions at Princeton University, National University of Singapore, University of California, Los Angeles, University of San Diego, and Occidental College (Los Angeles). He is an Associate of the Science, Technology, and Society Cluster at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore, a contributing editor to ARDETH Journal (Turin, Italy), and a founding member of ANZA East Africa (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania).

Link to ORCID iD

Link to Voyaging Vapors SNSF Project Page

Link to personal site