David Pruiksma is an American animator, best known for his work for The Walt Disney Company. He has worked on Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He attended J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia. After high school, he attended Pratt Institute in New York. He later studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts. After completing work on 2001's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Pruiksma quit Disney and went into semi-retirement, although he did serve as an animation director and storyboard artist for the Cartoon Network series Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi.