David studied geology at Edinburgh University. He has worked as a geology tutor on the island of Arran and as an expedition advisor for the Royal Geographical Society. He then fell off a Scottish mountain and self-rescued with broken legs. He worked as a ranger at the Grand Canyon National Park before going to Montserrat to participate in a biodiversity survey (and survived its unexpected volcanic eruption!).
Since then, he's sailed out of Victoria, British Columbia to drill holes in the Pacific seafloor, been geologizing in Antarctica, done some exploring of Botswana, and regularly takes groups to Iceland to look at its geology, and to Italy’s Bay of Naples (Pompeii, Vesuvius, Herculaneum) looking at volcanic hazard and Roman culture.
David lives in Dumfries, southwest Scotland. He tutors university courses on renewable energy, geohazards, and past environmental change. In 2021 he was an official observer at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.