David, leader of the Materials Joining and Nondestructive Testing Group at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), directs ORNL's Basic Energy Welding Sciences program. His focus concentrates on solidification behavior of welds, welding of intermetallic alloys, phase stability, process modeling and residual stresses in weldments.
He is a fellow of the American Welding Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and ASM International. David is former general chairman of the International Conference on Trends in Welding Research and is editor-in-chief of the journal Science and Technology of Welding and Joining.
David earned bachelor's and master's degrees in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science and a doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a recipient of the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the latter institution's School of Engineering.
He is a resident of West Knoxville.