David D. Awschalom (born 1956 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States)^[1] is an American condensed matter experimental physicist. He is best known for his work in spintronics in semiconductors.

Awschalom graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign with a B.Sc. in physics. He received a Ph.D. in experimental physics from Cornell University.^[2][3] He is the director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange^[4] and a Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME).^[3] He previously served as the director of the California Nanosystems Institute and was a professor in the physics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara as well as an associated faculty member in the department of electrical and computer engineering. He has a Hirsch number of 96.

• elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (1992) ^[5]
• Oliver E. Buckley Prize by the American Physical Society (2005)^[6]
• Agilent Europhysics Prize by the European Physical Society (2005)^[7]
• elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006)^[8]
• elected member of National Academy of Sciences (2007)^[9]
• Turnbull Lectureship Award from the Materials Research Society (2010)^[10]
• elected member of National Academy of Engineering (2011)^[11]