David William Steadman is a paleontologist and ornithologist, and Curator Emeritus of ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.
[1][2] His research has concentrated on the evolution, biogeography, conservation, and extinction of tropical birds, particularly in the islands of the Pacific Ocean.
[4] Steadman trained at the University of Arizona as a student of Paul S. Martin, supported by a Predoctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution.
[5] He has conducted a number of digs at prehistoric sites and uncovered widescale extinctions caused by humans in the early stages of colonisation.
He has conducted several expeditions to the Galápagos Islands, and has described a number of extinct species of birds and more recently was involved in discovering that the Solomon Islands frogmouth is a species (instead of a subspecies of the marbled frogmouth, as formerly believed).