David Gubbins (born May 31, 1947) is a British former geophysicist concerned with the mechanism of the Earth's magnetic field and theoretical geophysics.
In 1976 he returned to Cambridge to work in the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics (later Earth Sciences), becoming a professor and a fellow of Churchill College.
[1] In retirement he remains active, spending summer months at Leeds and autumn at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
His main research interest has been the origin of the Earth's magnetic field, He employs the Leeds Dynamo Code to simulate geomagnetic behaviour over millions of years and compares the results with actual geomagnetic and paleomagnetic records.
He has recalculated the thermal history of the Earth's core from determinations of the material properties of iron alloys and developed a new approach to analysing the magnetisation of crust and lithosphere.