Andrew M. Davis (born 1950) is an American meteoriticist and professor of astronomy and geoscience at the University of Chicago.
[3] He is conducting research about the isotopic compositions of refractory inclusions in meteorites to understand the earliest history of the Solar System.
Isotopic fractionation effects and the relative abundances of trace elements are used to constrain thermal histories and redox conditions in the solar nebula and on the asteroidal parent bodies of meteorites.
Tiny (<10 μm in diameter) grains of silicon carbide, graphite, and other refractory minerals and rocks condensed around dying stars (mostly red giant stars and supernovae) survived potentially destructive processes in the interstellar medium and during solar system formation, and can now be found in meteorites.
He is measuring the isotopic compositions of these grains with a new technique, resonant ionization mass spectrometry, that was developed by his collaborators at Argonne National Laboratory.