David Alexander Brown (8 February 1916 – 3 November 2009) was a geologist who played an important role in developing the study of Geology in Australia.
When World War II broke out he first joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and then later the Royal Navy.
His highlight was to bomb the German battleship Tirpitz in April 1944 in Altenfjord a Norwegian fjord while flying a Fairey Barracuda torpedo bomber in Operation Tungsten.
Brown was given a post graduate scholarship to study Bryozoa (or Polyzoans) from the Tertiary period in New Zealand.
In 1948 he graduated with a PhD and a DIC, and an award of the Lyell Fund from the Geological Society of London in 1953.