David Alan Drabold (born 13 February 1960) is an American physicist, currently Edwin and Ruth Kennedy Distinguished Professor at Ohio University.
Early life
Born in Akron, Ohio, he received a B.S. in applied mathematics from the University of Akron in 1982, and a PhD. in physics from Washington University in St. Louis under the supervision of Peter Fedders. He held term appointments in the department of physics at the University of Notre Dame, and Materials Science and Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where his key mentors were Otto F. Sankey and Richard M. Martin.
Research
Drabold's work focuses on the theory of amorphous materials. He is a theoretical physicist working primarily in condensed matter physics and computational physics. He is known for his formulation of algorithms to elucidate consequences of structural disorder to electronic, optical and transport properties. His published research has over 10,000 scientific citations and has been published in high impact journals such as Nature and Science. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics and the Royal Numismatic Society.
He has been Visiting Fellow Commoner in Trinity College, Cambridge, and is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He was Leverhulme Visiting Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge in 2008.