David Goldston

Director
dgoldsto@mit.edu
(617) 324-9101

As the director of the MIT Washington Office since May 2017, David Goldston helps shape MIT’s policy, positions and communications regarding federal matters.

Prior to coming to MIT, Goldston was director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group, where he helped shape NRDC’s federal political strategy, policies and communications. Before his time at the NRDC he spent more than 20 years on Capitol Hill, working primarily on science and environmental policy, including serving as chief of staff of the House Committee on Science from 2001 through 2006.

After retiring from government service, Goldston was a visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and at the Harvard University Center for the Environment. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. From 2007 through November 2009, he wrote a monthly column for Nature on science policy titled “Party of One.” Goldston also was the project director for the Bipartisan Policy Center report: “Improving the Use of Science in Regulatory Policy,” which was released in August 2009. He authored a chapter in The Science of Science Policy: A Handbook (Stanford University Press, 2011). He is a member of the advisory committee for the National Academies’ Climate Communications Initiative and of the Academies’ Board on Science Education, and he has served on numerous panels of the Academy and other science policy organizations. He holds a B.A. from Cornell University and completed the course work for a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Pennsylvania.