Dave has a PhD in radioastronomy and microwave spectroscopy and degrees in chemistry, chemical engineering, and physics. He is boundary-crossing, multi-skilled lateral thinker with unusually broad, highly relevant formal academic training in multiple scientific disciplines. He has developed strong scientific capabilities that allow him to find novel solutions to complex problems. He focuses strongly on fundamental science that can be translated into tangible impact. He has published over 250 research papers (e.g. Chemical Reviews, Chemical Society Reviews, Nature Materials, Nature Machine Intelligence, Angewandte Chemie, PNAS, Science Advances, Advanced Materials) and book chapters, almost 60 research and client reports, is an inventor on 25 patents. His current H-index is 69 and i10 index (number of papers with >10 citations) is 221. He is ranked 44 among all researchers at La Trobe in terms of the number of publications since 2015 and number 36 at La Trobe in terms of the total number of citations. Internationally, he is ranked 40th out of 112,000 medicinal chemists, 214th out of 151,000 nanotechnologists, and 538th out of 759,000 chemists worldwide (Elsevier/Stanford 2025).

He holds several editorial board appointments in high-impact journals. He is the recipient of diverse International awards and honours including the AMMA Medal (molecular modelling), RACI Distinguished Fellowship, Herman Skolnik award from the American Chemical Society (informatics), the Adrien Albert award of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (medicinal chemistry), the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) Distinguished Fellowship (bioengineering), the CRC for Polymers Chairman’s Award for Excellence in Commercialisation (drug design), and the CSIRO Medal for Business Excellence..

An important aspect of his research has involved dissecting the quantitative structure-activity method, rebuilding it with modern mathematical and artificial intelligence methods, and adapting evolutionary approaches to the design of bioactive molecules and materials for diagnostics, therapeutics, and regeneration. Some of the technology arising from this was licenced to Bio-RAD Corporation. He has also provided key intellectual property for three start up biotechnology companies. He was a foundation member of the CSIRO complex systems science group and established and published seminal cited papers in this field. His most recent work involves modelling the interactions of materials with biology, particularly the ability of materials surface chemistry, physicochemical properties and topographies to modulate cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation, and the design of small molecule and peptides to modulate protein-protein interactions as drug leads.

Dave was a Director of Caulfield and Malvern Grammar School Boards, a Fellow, Board Chair and Honorary General Secretary of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, a Director and member of the Board Executive of Science and Technology Australia, a member of the Australian Academy of Science's National Committee for Chemistry, member of the Board, Past President and Fellow of the Asian Federation for Medicinal Chemistry, and of the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies. He also served on the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry nomenclature committee and is the Australian representative on the Pacifichem organising committee.