David R. Dalton was born in St. John's (but is from Lake View), Newfoundland, Canada in early 1964. He received the B.Sc. (Hon.) degree in Earth Sciences (Geophysics) in 1985 from Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. His B.Sc. thesis re-examined electromagnetic core-mantle coupling. During the summers of 1983 and 1985 he also worked in Memorial University field programs for collecting and processing gravity, magnetic and seismic data. He received the M.Sc. degree in 1988 from the University of British Columbia. His M.Sc. research examined exact and approximate solutions for acoustic diffraction by an edge. He received the Ph.D. degree in 2018 from Memorial University of Newfoundland with thesis title "On Backus average in modelling guided waves."
His geophysical corporate experience consists of one summer (1984) working with Chevron Canada in Calgary, doing seismic modelling, interpretation and some field work.
His music industry experience consists of four years as part-time audio engineer and booker/promoter/publicist/host for Friday night gigs at the UBC grad centre. This is related somewhat to the acoustical physics and digital signal processing research and education since audio engineering involves acoustical physics and digital signal processing, and so does geophysics. For a list of musical acts he has booked and/or done sound for, see music industry experience.
Since early 2019 he has been a part-time research assistant in the Department of Earth Sciences at Memorial. This contract will end at the end of August, 2024 unless it is extended.
Dr. Dalton has been a student member of each of the Canadian Applied Mathematics Society (CAMS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Geophysical Union (AGU) the Canadian Geophysical Union (CGU), the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (CSEG), the Geological Association of Canada (GAC), and the TeX Users Group (TUG).