David graduated from Adelaide University, Australia in 1994 with a Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering.  He then gained employment with Adelaide Brighton Cement and Fuel and Combustion Technology as a process engineer for four years.  He commenced a PhD at the University of South Australia in Jan 2000 researching the effect of dissolved gas on colloidal stability.  On completion of his PhD, he moved with his family to the UK to work in the School of Chemistry, Bristol University on a two year PostDoc with Prof. Brian Vincent investigating colloidal aggregation for Kodak.  With a Kodak sponsored grant to investigate electrically tuneable photonic crystals, he spent a further two years at Bristol.  Since Jan 2008 he has worked at the Cavendish Laboratories in the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge researching polymeric opals. In June 2009 he became a teaching fellow with the newly formed Nano Doctoral Training Centre (NanoDTC) coordinating a 4-year cross-disciplinary PhD program within the departments of Physics, Chemistry, Materials and Engineering. From 2009-2011 he was engaged with Cambridge Enterprise building a patent portfolio, working with marketing consultants and meeting with potential industry partners and customers, with a view to commercialising polymer opal films.

In Jan 2012 David left the Physics department to begin working at Schlumberger’s Cambridge research facility. After investigating wellbore strengthening and rock-cutter interactions for several year he joined Schlumberger’s New Energy group in March 2021. He now supports the work to develop new low-carbon businesses with a particular focus on energy transition ventures and the hydrogen group (https://genvia.com/) involving solid oxide electrolyser manufacture. In addition, he has supported the Solar Impulse Foundation (https://solarimpulse.com/) since its inception in 2018 and has evaluated over 80 technology solutions, earning the title of “Expert of the year” in 2020.