Molly Davis has been the director of The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of Kentucky at the University of Kentucky since 2014. Davis was previously a supervising landscape architect at Parsons Brinckerhoff’s Lexington, KY office.

Davis is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, where she has since served as a research assistant and an adjunct professor in the department of landscape architecture. Davis has lived and worked in England, and also worked on projects in France. In her 15 years at Parsons Brinckerhoff, she was responsible for managing the process to bring two projects to fruition in Beckley, WV— the Beckley Intermodal Gateway and the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine Visitors Center—as well as managing planning and design assignments in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. She has a broad knowledge of Kentucky’s landscapes and resources. Her work with Ned Crankshaw in Clark County’s Lower Howard’s Creek won top honors from the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The 100-acre arboretum updated its master plan in 2015 with Terra Design (Pittsburgh, PA) and is poised to expand and renovate the Dorotha Smith Oatts Visitor Center to provide expanded and improved educational and administrative facilities. The Arboretum strives to play an important and meaningful role in the lives of UK students, faculty and staff by facilitating learned opportunities encouraging the incorporation of The Arboretum into classes and projects including the NRES Capstone, Landscape Architecture Capstone, LA Design Studio VI, Plant Taxonomy, Dendrology, Integrated Strategic Communication and others.