In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the android crew member is Data. He serves aboard the USS Enterprise-D as chief operations officer and second officer under Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and later serves aboard the Enterprise-E.
Data is a Soong-type android created by the scientist Noonien Soong. Starfleet found him on Omicron Theta after the colony was destroyed by the Crystalline Entity. His positronic brain gives him extraordinary analytical and computational abilities, but he initially lacks human emotions and struggles to understand humor, intuition, and social customs.
The character’s central story is his attempt to become more human while remaining an artificial life-form. Episodes such as “The Measure of a Man” explore whether he is a person or Starfleet property, while “The Offspring” introduces Lal, the android he creates and regards as his daughter. Brent Spiner portrayed Data throughout The Next Generation and several Star Trek films.
A common mix-up is confusing Data with Lore, B-4, or Soong. Lore and B-4 are also androids from Soong’s family of creations, while Soong is Data’s creator—not the Enterprise crew member himself.