Dr. David A. Williams is currently serving as a Faculty Research Associate in the Department of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University. He served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at ASU in 2001-2002, in which he cotaught Physical Geology and a graduate seminar in Planetary Volcanology. David is currently perfoming research in volcanology and planetary geology, with a focus on planetary mapping, geochemical, and remote sensing studies. His research has included computer modeling of seismic wave propagation through planetary interiors, visible and near-infrared spectroscopy of lunar lavas, planetary geologic mapping of the satellites of Jupiter, computer modeling of the physical and geochemical evolution of lava flows in a variety of planetary environments, and petrologic study of lava samples from Mount St Helens. He was involved with NASA's Magellan Mission to Venus, and was an affiliate member of the Solid-State Imaging Team of NASA's Galileo Mission to Jupiter, where he was involved in mission planning, image processing, and data analysis of the Jovian satellites Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Dr. Williams is currently serving as an Associate Investigator on the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, that arrived at Mars in December 2003. He is also involved in education/public outreach activities including giving talks to school and civic groups and developing educational materials.
David received his Bachelor of Science in Astronomy & Astrophysics (with minors in Mathematics and Geology) from Indiana University in 1989, and his Master of Science in Geology from Arizona State University in 1992. He received his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Alabama in August 1998, where he was a three-time Graduate Council Research Fellow and received the award for Outstanding Research by a Doctoral Student from the University of Alabama Graduate School in 1998. He has also performed field studies in Hawaii, the Canadian subarctic, Western Australia, and South Africa. David has been part of the faculty at ASU for over five years, and has recently published papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Bulletin of Volcanology, and the planetary science journal Icarus.
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