Bio David Widawsky

Associate Director, Office of Environmental Policy Innovation
National Center for Environmental Policy Innovation
Unite States Environmental Protection Agency

Education:B.S. Plant and Soil Biology, University of California at Berkeley, 1987
B.S. Political Economy of Natural Resources, University of California at Berkeley, 1987
M.S. Agricultural Economics, Colorado State University, 1990
Ph.D. Applied and Development Economics, Stanford University, 1996

Background Highlights:
Dr. Widawsky has worked in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 9 years, the last two years serving as Associate Director in the Office of Environmental Policy Innovation, in EPA’s National Center for Environmental Innovation. The mission of the Office is to identify and promote results-based environmental improvements through regulatory innovation, collaborative problem solving, and a focus on stewardship as a principle for environmental innovation. Dr. Widawsky is an active member of EPA’s Environmental Technology Council, where he is helping to develop a set of regional environmental technology experts who can facilitate public/private and federal/state partnerships to promote technologies with environmental benefits. He is also working with colleagues in EPA to formulate the Agency’s strategic plan for promoting sustainability in biofuels and renewable fuel production. Dr. Widawsky is an active member of an interagency workgroup (the Interagency Network of Enterprise Assistance Providers) focusing on identifying and promoting collaborations among federal agencies to support small and medium-sized enterprises.

Prior to joining the National Center for Environmental Innovation, Dr. Widawsky supervised a staff of 15 economists and statisticians who analyzed the potential economic impact of EPA’s regulatory decisions involving pesticides. The staff provided support for Agency-wide efforts to refine methods of environmental economics in an effort to provide greater insight into the costs and benefits of environmental regulation. Dr. Widawsky supervised U.S. efforts to comply with international agreements on ozone-layer protection, particularly provisions dealing with regulation of methyl bromide, an important agricultural pesticide known to deplete stratospheric ozone.

In 2004, Dr. Widawsky was selected for a competitive sabbatical program, and served in the Department of Commerce, in the International Trade Administration (ITA). His focus was facilitating the development of private equity capital markets to foster technology-led entrepreneurism and economic growth, working primarily with Asian and European economies. Among the technology areas where he focused, Dr. Widawsky has a particular interest in industrial biotechnology, as an instrument of sustainable technological transformation.

Before joining EPA, Dr. Widawsky held a number of international positions, serving as an agricultural economist at the International Rice Research Instititute, an organization funded by multilateral grants and located in the Philippines. His research focused on the economics of village-based integrated pest management for Asian rice production and technology dissemination through informal social networks. Dr. Widawsky also lived and worked in China while conducting doctoral research on the productivity of both pesticides and host-plant resistance in Chinese rice production, and worked in India with the Rockefeller Foundation, developing a research plan for biotechnology in rice. He has held jobs as a plant breeder (in The Netherlands) and a soil scientist (in Scotland).
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