David is the Chief Correspondent of NPR Talk’s “Biotech Nation”, a weekly national program on public radio. He is contributing Editor to Wired, Discover, and Technology Review, and a commentator on NPR’s “Morning Edition”. He has been a special correspondent and producer for ABC’s Nightline and 20/20, and a producer for Discovery Television. He is a correspondent for NOVA’s ScienceNow! and an Executive Producer for the Smithsonian Networks. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic, Fortune and MIT Technology Review, and was a longtime correspondent for Life. He also writes for Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, Outside, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Washington Post Book World, and The New York Times, among others. He contributes to the Dialogues column for Discover.

In 2003, David won the prestigious Magazine Story of the Year Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2006, his article “Wired to Eat” was cited in a nomination by the National Magazine Awards for the MIT Technology Review in the General Excellence category.

David is the Founder and Editorial Director of the BioAgenda Institute, an independent, non-profit program of events and educational initiatives that discusses and analyzes crucial issues in life sciences. He is the host of the 3-day annual BioAgenda Summit.

David’s other books include the bestselling Pedaling the Ends of the Earth (Simon & Schuster), about his bicycle expedition around the world, and Hernando Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas, called “an astonishing tour de force” by the New York Times Book Review. He wrote Residents: The Perils and Promise of Educating Young Doctors (Scribner) and Cape to Cairo: An African Odyssey (Grove Atlantic). His fiction has appeared in two anthologies. He has taught creative writing at Stanford University, and is the Director of a series of performances in San Francisco called Grotto Nights. He is on the board of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. He works at the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto, and lives in San Francisco.