Rate My Professor Dave Prior

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.