David Monsma

Director, Clean Energy and Subsurface Energy Programs

David Monsma directs the clean energy and subsurface energy programs for the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation in Austin. 

He is responsible for leading the design of clean energy and subsurface energy strategies, managing the programs’ grants portfolio, and collaborating with CGMF’s grantees, partners, and alliances. David is adamant that we cannot achieve a sustainable energy future without an agreed-upon, evidence-based energy policy system in the United States, and we cannot achieve a sustainable energy policy framework in the U.S. without a modern and sustainable energy management system in Texas.

From 2006 to 2018, David served as the executive director of the energy and environment program and a vice president for the Aspen Institute. He was also a senior moderator for the Aspen Executive Seminar. 

An attorney by training, David was an assistant professor of Environmental Law and Social Responsibility at Loyola University in Maryland and served as director of business and environment at BSR in San Francisco. He also co-founded the Environmental Justice Law Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law while serving as staff counsel for the Environmental Action Foundation. 

During the Clinton Administration, he was the environmental management task force coordinator for the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. David began his legal career working for the Maryland Office of the Attorney General and the ACLU of Maryland before joining the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the Office of Toxics Substances and Pollution Prevention in Washington, D.C.