David L. Bish received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University in 1977 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University until 1980. He then joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked until 2003, when he joined Indiana University as Professor and Haydn Murray Chair of Applied Clay Mineralogy. He retired in 2018 and is Professor Emeritus of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Indiana University. His research focuses o hydrous minerals, including clay minerals and zeolites, and their response to changes in environmental conditions. Much of his research also focuses on X-ray and neutron powder diffraction and Rietveld analysis of the data.
