Dr. David P. Baldwin was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1963. He received a B.S. degree in chemistry from Lebanon Valley College (Annville, PA) in 1985 and a Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. He was a postdoctoral associate at the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California from 1989 to 1991. He came to Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University in 1991 as a member of the professional and scientific staff. Dr. Baldwin has been the Director of the Environmental and Protection Sciences Program of the Ames Laboratory since 1999, and Director of the Midwest Forensics Resource Center since 2002.

Dr. Baldwin's research has centered on the development of novel instrumentation and techniques for analytical measurements in environmental, forensic science, and nonproliferation applications. Key research areas include the development of compact robust spectrometers for field applications, multivariate statistical methods for spectral and spatial imaging, and laser ablation sampling methods. Dr. Baldwin is a member of the American Chemical Society and Sigma Xi. He is an Advisory Board Member of the Iowa Internet Crimes against Children Taskforce and an ex-officio member of the FBI's Scientific Working Group on Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (SWGSTAIN).