58th Annual Vegetable & Flower Seed Conference

David Babson
Senior Advisor
USDA Office of the Chief Scientist


Dr. David Babson is the Senior Advisor for Renewable Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment in the Office of the Chief Scientist at the United States Department of Agriculture. David is on detail from the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) at the U.S. Department of Energy where he is Technology Manager. At BETO David oversees several projects for its Conversion Program and works to understand how to leverage new technologies to advance the emerging bioeconomy and address global energy and climate challenges. David is BETO’s federal lead for its waste-to-energy and advanced carbon commoditization efforts. Based in BETO’s Washington, DC office, David has extensive research and policy experience. Before joining BETO he advocated for sustainable transportation solutions as a Senior Fuels Engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and served as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Climate Economics and Modeling Center at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he reviewed key initiatives such as the Renewable Fuel Standard. Before starting his fellowship he completed post-docs at the University of Minnesota’s Biotechnology Institute and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. David received a PhD in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from Rutgers University and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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