David J. McComas

David John McComas
Born	May 22, 1958 (1958-05-22) (age 58) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S.) University of California, Los Angeles (M.S., Ph.D.)
Occupation	physicist, executive
Known for	space scientist and Principal Investigator of multiple space missions

David John McComas (born May 22, 1958) is an American space plasma physicist, Vice President for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. He had been Assistant Vice President for Space Science and Engineering at the Southwest Research Institute, full Adjoint Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), and was the founding director of the Center for Space Science and Exploration at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is noted for his extensive accomplishments in experimental space plasma physics, including leading instruments and missions to study the heliosphere and solar wind: Ulysses/SWOOPS, ACE/SWEPAM, IBEX, TWINS, and Solar Probe Plus. He received the 2014 COSPAR Space Science Award and the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal.

McComas was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Geophysics and Space Physics from University of California, Los Angeles in 1985 and 1986. He began his space physics career in 1980 with early development work on the SWOOPS instrument for Ulysses, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He moved to SwRI, in San Antonio, Texas, in 2000.