David Burwell is director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment. His work at Carnegie focuses on the intersection between energy, transportation, and climate issues, as well as policies and practice reforms to reduce global dependence on fossil fuels.
Before joining Carnegie, he was a principal in the BBG Group, a transportation consulting firm that addresses climate, energy, and sustainable transportation policy with a particular focus on how climate and transportation policies can be better coordinated to promote sustainable development and successful communities. During his career, he served as co-founder and CEO of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and as founding co-chair and president of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a national coalition for reforming transportation policy. A lawyer by training, he also worked for the National Wildlife Federation as director of its Transportation and Infrastructure Program.
He has served on the executive committee of the National Research Council’s Transportation Research Board (1992–1998) and is presently on the Board of Advisers of the Institute for Transportation and the Environment at the University of California, Davis. He served in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa.
