After completing his Bachelors degree in Physics, and PhD in High Energy Physics, at Imperial College London, Dave moved to CERN as a “Fellow” in 1994, to work on CMS. He spent nearly two decades conceptualizing, prototyping, assembling and operating the 2-layer silicon-based calorimeter in the CMS endcaps: the Preshower. And he is still the overall responsible person for this detector.

After obtaining his PhD from Karlsruhe University (Germany) in 1993, he joined CERN as a fellow in the DELPHI experiment and became staff in 1996. As member of the detector support group (today known as EP-DT), he worked in several experiments, mainly on detector R&D, construction, operation, technical coordination and group management. His main interest are light based detectors (Cherenkov and scintillation). From 2018 to mid-2023 he was deputy head of the EP department and coordinated the EP R&D programme.