American actor who played Ensign Sam Lavelle, the eager junior conn officer competing for promotion, in the seventh-season Next Generation episode Lower Decks.
Dan Gauthier is an American actor known for the film Teen Witch and for television roles in Tour of Duty, Melrose Place and One Life to Live.
In Lower Decks he plays Sam Lavelle, one of four junior officers through whose eyes the episode is told. Lavelle is up against his friend Sito Jaxa for a posting at ops and is sure that Commander Riker dislikes him, a suspicion not helped by his awkward efforts to make conversation in Ten Forward.
Troi points out to Riker how alike the two men are. Lavelle gets his promotion to lieutenant junior grade, but only after Sito is lost on her mission, and takes no pleasure in it.