David Cromwell is a Scottish media campaigner and oceanographer, who is a co-editor of the Media Lens website. Born in Glasgow, his mother was a practising Catholic while his father was an activist and communist sympathiser. Cromwell spent his formative years in Barrhead and, mostly, Cumbernauld. He graduated in physics and astronomy from the University of Glasgow. After a PhD in solar physics he moved to the United States in 1988 to pursue a year-long postdoctoral research at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Returning to Europe, he joined Shell International for five years in 1989 as an exploration geophysicist. After five months of training in geology, geophysics, and management skills, Cromwell was posted to Shell's exploration and production company in Assen, Netherlands, while living in nearby Groningen, leaving Shell in 1993. At that time, he was appointed to a research position in the institution now known as the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom, but left in 2010 to work full-time on Media Lens. 

January 1st, 1962 in Glasgow (Age 62)