Rate My Professor Dave Prior

Professor David J Prior, known professionally as Dave Prior, serves as Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Otago within the Division of Sciences. He holds a BSc from the University of Wales and a PhD from the University of Leeds, where his doctoral research focused on the Alpine Fault. Prior specializes in microstructural analysis using Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) to investigate material processes controlling the behavior of crystalline materials, including rocks, industrial ceramics, metals, and ice. His research encompasses grain boundary sliding and its role in Earth rheology, deformation mechanisms during creep of the crust, mantle, and glacial ice, large-scale tectonic and thermo-chemical processes in Earth's interior, the evolution of brittle fault rocks in seismogenic zones like the Alpine Fault, and the mechanics of ice sheets and glaciers.

Prior's career features extensive international collaborations, including with researchers from Otago, Wellington, GNS Science, Brown University, MIT, and Dartmouth College. He has been a principal scientist in the International Continental Drilling Programme for the Alpine Fault since around 2003, contributing to the initial drilling in 2011. At Otago, he established an EBSD laboratory to support microstructural studies linked to high-strain deformation experiments. He delivered the 2022 Hochstetter Lecture on shear zones in ice sheets and served as a panellist on the Marsden Fund Earth Sciences and Astronomy Panel from 2018 to 2019. Prior has received multiple Marsden Fund grants, such as 'Stretching ice to the limit: New flow laws for ice sheets' (2018–2021), 'Episodic creep at the brittle-ductile transition during the seismic cycle of great earthquakes' (2012–2015), and 'Why is pounamu tough? Using materials science and mātauranga Māori to explain the special physical properties and uses of nephrite jade' (2023–2026). Notable publications include 'The application of Electron Backscatter Diffraction and Orientation Contrast Imaging in the SEM to textural problems in rocks' (1999, American Mineralogist), 'Kinking facilitates grain nucleation and modifies crystallographic preferred orientations during high-stress ice deformation' (2021, Earth and Planetary Science Letters), 'Flow laws for ice constrained by 70 years of laboratory experiments' (2025, Nature Geoscience), and 'Deep learning the flow law of Antarctic ice shelves' (2025, Science). His contributions advance understanding of fault mechanics, ice dynamics, and climate-relevant Earth system responses.