Dr. James David “Dave” Cone offers a unique perspective to the UC Davis Physics Advisory Board as a nontraditional alumnus of UC Davis with a passion for physics. Dr. Cone began his career at IBM in Palo Alto before starting his own software company, Camstar Systems Inc. in 1984. Camstar, a leader in manufacturing control software, was later acquired by Siemens AG.

In 2007, Dr. Cone left Camstar to pursue his passion for physics at UC Davis. He completed his doctorate in condensed matter theory in 2013, and has since taught computational biological physics in the UC Davis COSMOS program for advanced high school students. He is currently retired and lives in Davis, California.

Dr. Cone received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. He holds a Master of Science in operations research from Stanford University, a Master of Business Administration from UC Berkeley, and a doctorate in physics from UC Davis.