David M. Dooley

Dooley's first academic appointment was as an instructor of chemistry at Amherst College in 1978, where he remained until 1993 when he assumed his position as head of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Montana State University. Between 1984 and 1993, Dooley held a joint appointment as a chemistry professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he conducted much of his research into organometallic chemistry. In 1993, he joined the faculty of Montana State University as the chairperson of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 1999, he was appointed as interim provost, and in 2001, he was named as the permanent provost. In 2009, he joined the University of Rhode Island as its eleventh president and primarily focused on enhancing the global reach of the university and its research programs. Throughout his career as an administrator at both MSU and URI, he maintained his research program as an active scientist.

David Marlin Dooley (born 13 May 1952) is an American chemist with expertise in organometallic compounds, and university administrator who has served as Provost of Montana State University and the eleventh President of the University of Rhode Island.

Dooley was born May 13, 1952, in Tulare County, California, to Walter Marvin Dooley and Mary Frances (Leonard) Dooley. He attended Foothill Aurora High School in Bakersfield, California, and he married Lynn Erville Baker, an ordained Baptist Minister, on Nov. 24, 1978 in Nobles County, Minnesota. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1974 at the University of California, San Diego and his Ph.D. degree in 1979 at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.