David Cromwell is a research scientist and writer. He was born in Glasgow in 1962 and spent most of his formative years in Barrhead and Cumbernauld, emerging relatively unscathed. David graduated in Natural Philosophy (whatever that might be) and Astronomy from the University of Glasgow. After a PhD in Solar Physics he moved to the United States in 1988 to pursue a year-long postdoc at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Returning to Europe, he joined Shell International in 1989 as an exploration geophysicist. After five months of training in geology, geophysics, and 'management skills', as well as learning to appreciate fine Belgian and Dutch beers, David was posted to Shell's exploration and production company in Assen in the north of The Netherlands. This provided the excellent opportunity of living in the lovely university town of Groningen. As one local slogan puts it: 'Er gaat niets boven Groningen!' (literally: 'There's nothing above Groningen!'). He left Shell in 1993 to take up his present research position at Southampton Oceanography Centre (http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk) in the UK.

David's articles and letters on human rights, the environment and grassroots activism have appeared in many newspapers and magazines, and he is a regular contributor to ZNet (http://www.zmag.org). In 2001, he co-founded Media Lens (http://www.medialens.org) with David Edwards (author of Free To Be Human and The Compassionate Revolution) and webmaster Phil Chandler. Media Lens is a small independent watchdog which monitors the broadcast and the print media in the UK, particularly the 'liberal' media, for evidence of bias, distortions and omissions on such issues as climate change, Iraq and the 'war on terror'. Free e-mailed media alerts encourage subscribers to write to journalists and editors to challenge their arguments. Subscription is free.

David Edwards and David Cromwell are currently collaborating on a new book, provisionally titled The Guardians of Power. This is an honest, no-holds barred expose of how the liberal media enable state-corporate power to pursue destructive aims at home and abroad. Such a straightforward, challenging and critical approach - including several eye-opening debates with editors and journalists from the BBC, The Guardian, ITN, Channel 4 News, The Independent and others - will mean that the mainstream media will happily ignore the book when it appears.

David lives in Southampton with his partner and two sons, making brief and irregular forays back to Scotland and Holland.

You can contact David here: david@private-planet.com