David J. Stevenson

Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
Caltech

Professor David J. Stevenson was born in New Zealand and was educated at Victoria University in Wellington and at Cornell University where he received his Ph.D. in 1976. His doctoral thesis work concerned the application of condensed matter physics to the interior of Jupiter; his thesis advisor was Ed Salpeter. After two years as a research fellow at Australian National University, working with Stewart Turner, and two years as an assistant professor at UCLA, he came to Caltech in 1980, where he has remained ever since.

Dr. Stevenson is presently the George Van Osdol Professor of Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology. During his time at Caltech , he was Chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (1989-94). Dr. Stevenson was a Fulbright Scholar and has been the recipient of numerous prizes and honors including the Urey Prize (Division of Planetary Sciences, American Astronomical Society) in 1984 and the Hess Medal (American Geophysical Union) in 1998. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (London). In addition, an asteroid discovered in 1989 by the Shoemakers has been named in his honor.

Professor Stevenson's research effort concerns the origin, evolution and structure of both major and terrestrial planets including Earth and satellites. His focus is on the applications of condensed matter physics and fluid dynamics to planetary interiors and the origin of the solar system. His work is theoretical in nature, eclectic and opportunistic. His planetary research tends to be motivated by data returned by space missions (most recently, Galileo at Jupiter and MGS at Mars) while geophysical research tends to be motivated by issues that involve convective processes (mantle and core) but often in conjunction with additional complexities (two-phase flow, kinetics and differentiation). Professor Stevenson is the author of over 100 papers in these areas of research.

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