Dr. David Burtt is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Burtt's research focuses on contextualizing past and present climates at the surface of Mars. More specifically, he uses isotope geochemistry to study carbonates, a mineralogical phase capable of preserving signatures of its formation conditions. This laboratory-based research informs analyses performed with the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument aboard the Curiosity rover. While his current research is Mars-related, Dr. Burtt is broadly interested in the intersection between isotopes and planetary geoscience.
Dr. Burtt earned a PhD. in Geosciences from Stony Brook University, where he used carbonate clumped isotopes to study terrestrial meteorite impacts and their products. Dr. Burtt also has a B.A in Geology-Chemistry from Whitman College with an undergraduate thesis on the use of strontium isotopes to track mammoth migration patterns.