David Sampson is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research & Innovation, at the University of Surrey, with portfolio responsibilities for research and innovation. He is also a professor in the School of Biosciences and Medicine, and the Advanced Technology Institute, School of Physics - and runs his own lab, Surrey Biophotonics. David is a member of the University Council and Executive Board and Director of the University of Surrey Seed Fund and of SETsquared Limited. He sits on the editorial board of The Conversation (UK), the executive boards of SETsquared Partnership and SPRINT. He is a graduate in Chemical Physics from the University of Western Australia and obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Kent, UK. He was formerly with the University of Western Australia, where he founded and ran the Optical+Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, and directed the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation and Analysis, a core facility with over 500 users. He was also affiliated with the Australian national infrastructure facilities Microscopy Australia, the National Imaging Facility, and Metabolomics Australia, and incorporated the Nikon Optical Superresolution Centre of Excellence and an International Atomic Energy Agency Networked Analytical Laboratory, the only university laboratory in its category worldwide. As an active researcher, David has been reinstated in the UK's REF 2021 and is also active in the global optics & photonics community, currently as an adviser to the Board of Directors of the SPIE - The International Society for Optics & Photonics and chair of the SPIE Publications Committee.

He is a fellow of the AIMBE, IEEE, OSA, and SPIE.