David Cash
David W. Cash serves as Regional Administrator for the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 1 office, which covers Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and ten Federally recognized Indian Nations. Dr. Cash has spent his career in public service harnessing science, innovative policy, and community involvement to help solve challenges and seize opportunities at the intersection of environmental protection, economic development, and equity. As Regional Administrator, Dr. Cash oversees all aspects of EPA’s work in New England, with particular focus on infrastructure programs, climate change, environmental justice, and equity. Before joining the EPA, Dr. Cash was Dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Cash spent a decade in Massachusetts state government in a range of senior positions, working to transform the Commonwealth’s environmental and energy policy. As Assistant Secretary of Policy in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs in Governor Deval Patrick’s administration, he was an architect of several nation-leading climate, clean energy, and environmental justice policies. He then served as a Commissioner in the Department of Public Utilities, followed by serving as the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. With experience serving as an environment and an energy commissioner, he focused on breaking down silos and addressing complex issues in comprehensive ways throughout the Commonwealth. In all these senior roles in state government, Dr. Cash collaborated across government and with community leaders and the private sector to craft and implement innovative science-based policies for climate action, environmental justice, clean energy, job creation, clean water, sustainable land use, waste management, and grid modernization. Dr. Cash holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, a science teaching degree from Lewis & Clark in Portland, OR, and a BS in biology from Yale University. He and his wife Annie Weiss, a psychotherapist, live in the Boston area and have two young adult daughters, who are both pursuing careers in addressing systemic climate injustice and ecosystem health.
The Salata Institute
The Salata Institute supports interdisciplinary research that leads to real-world action, including high-risk/high-reward projects by researchers already working in the climate area and new endeavors that make it easier for Harvard scholars, who have not worked on climate problems, to do so. Faculty interested in the Climate Research Clusters program should note an upcoming deadline for concepts on April 1, 2024.