As the Vice President of Ecosystems for the Environmental Defense Fund, David Festa is an expert on ecosystem resilience. His current projects include reversing habitat loss on working lands, eliminating fertilizer pollution as a major agricultural problem, and restoring coastal ecosystems to protect communities from rising sea level and extreme weather. Prior to leading the Ecosystems program, Festa headed up the Oceans program, where he ignited a sea change in the way fisheries are managed by winning approval for an incentives-based system called catch shares.

Festa earned a masters of public policy from Harvard University and a bachelor of arts from University of Virginia.