Dr. David White currently serves as the interim Dean for the Herbert College of Agriculture at the University of Tennessee. He is also a Professor of Food Science and took on the role of interim Department head in 2019 and most recently was Associate Dean for Research and Associate Director of the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.

He previously served in several positions in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Foods and Veterinary Medicine including Chief Science Officer /Research Director and Acting Director of the Office of Resource Planning and Strategic Management. Before that he served as the Director of the Division of Animal and Food Microbiology, Director of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) and Director of the Office of Research at FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. White is a past member of the Ad hoc group on Antimicrobial Resistance, Office International des Epizooties (OIE), Paris, France and a founding member of the Reservoirs of Antibiotic Resistance (ROAR). He has also served on several USDA extramural and intramural research panels, including the USDA office of science quality review panel, National Program 108 Action Plan on Food Safety as well as on review panels for other agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USDA, and Department of Defense.

Dr. White is an editor of the book “Frontiers in Antibiotic Resistance”, ASM Press, Washington D.C. and is on the editorial board of Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. He previously served as co-chair of both the FDA Antimicrobial Resistance Steering Committee and the U.S. Interagency Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance and as the U.S Delegate to the Codex Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance. Most recently he was appointed to the Board of Directors for the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA), the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) and the WHO Advisory Group on Critically Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine.

Dr. White received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont, his master of science from the University of Kentucky and his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. He also was a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University School of Medicine and before joining FDA, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary and Microbiological Sciences at North Dakota State University.