David Lawrence

Dr. David Lawrence conducts a wide variety of research in planetary and space physics, including studies of planetary composition, solar and magnetospheric studies, fundamental physics, and development of instrumentation and analysis techniques needed to carry out these studies. He is the science lead for three spaceflight instruments: the Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (GRNS) for NASA’s Psyche mission, the Mars-moon Exploration with GAmma-rays and NEutrons (MEGANE) spectrometer on the Japanese Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, and the Gamma-ray and Neutron Spectrometer (DraGNS) on NASA’s Dragonfly mission. Dr. Lawrence’s research uses orbital nuclear spectroscopy, including lunar science studies using Lunar Prospector gamma-ray and neutron data, studies of Mercury’s surface composition using data from the MESSENGER GRNS, and studies of the asteroids Vesta and Ceres using data from Dawn’s Gamma-Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND). He has also used data from the MESSENGER GRNS to study magnetospheric and solar physics. In the area of fundamental physics, he is the principal investigator on a Department of Energy project to study the feasibility of measuring neutron lifetime using space-based data from the MESSENGER and Lunar Prospector neutron spectrometers.