David Draper

Deputy Chief Scientist David Draper joins the Office from NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. He served as the Manager of the Astromaterials Research Office, Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division, Exploration Integration and Science Directorate, from June of 2009 to June of 2019. In this role he led a group of world-class planetary scientists specializing in the study of samples from other worlds to determine how the Solar System formed and evolved to its present state. Research Office scientists also have taken leading roles in NASA and international robotic spaceflight missions, including Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, OSIRIS-REx, and the Japanese space agency’s Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions. He served in numerous Division and Directorate leadership roles in helping chart the organization’s course in science and exploration.

Draper has 27 years of professional experience in studying the Earth, Moon, planets, and Solar System. These scientific studies explored frontier questions regarding characteristics, processes, and events of and on Earth, the Moon, and Mars. His scientific specialty is in experimental simulations at high temperatures and pressures of processes occurring within planetary interiors, such as the solidification of planetary magma oceans like those thought to have occurred on the Moon and Mars. He also has fifteen years' experience helping organize the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, serving as Program Committee Chair and co-Chair since 2009.

Draper’s education and training were in the geochemical and experimental study of terrestrial basalts, using them as probes of Earth’s upper mantle and to understand processes occurring in subduction zones and mantle plumes. This background was directly extensible to the study of rocky bodies in the Solar System. He hails from California and the Pacific Northwest, and has held academic positions in Texas and New Mexico, as well as postdoctoral appointments in the United Kingdom and Australia. He is passionately interested in United States and world history, as well as family genealogy, and is also a lifelong musician and amateur recording engineer.