David is a former NASA scientist based at the Queensland University of Technology. He currently serves as Long Term Planner and Science Team Co-Investigator for NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission.
As a Planetary Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, he was responsible for the development of lithochemical instruments designed to operate on Mars, the Moon, and other bodies in our solar system.
His main research interests are the reconstruction of environments which supported early life on Earth and the search for similar environments elsewhere in the solar system.