Robert L. Davis began his study of Spanish in high school. A study abroad scholarship in college took him to Madrid, Spain, where his life-long passion for Iberian culture began. Since that first trip in 1981, he has studied or worked in Salamanca, Seville, Segovia, Granada, and Huelva (also Marseille, France, and Rome, Italy) and traveled to all corners of the Iberian Peninsula. He obtained a bachelor's in Spanish from the University of Southern Mississippi, and both a masters and Ph.D in linguistics from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 2009 to 2014, he directed a language immersion program of the Middlebury Language Schools.

Davis has been a professor at the University of Oregon since 1991. His research interests include issues in language program direction, teaching methodologies, teacher training, content-based instruction, using technology in L2 learning, teaching culture, and second-language assessment. He has co-authored textbooks and articles referred to nationally for beginning and advanced language study. He has served in several leadership roles including on the board of AAUSC (American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators, and Directors of Language Programs), where in October 2020 he was on the founding Editorial Board of the journal Second Language Research & Practice.

Davis was an invaluable member of the Wayside Publishing EntreCulturas 1 author team, alongside Ann Mar, George Watson-López, and Maritza Sloan.