David Acheson is the Managing Director, Food and Import Safety Practice, at Leavitt Partners a consulting firm that advises clients in the practice areas of health, environment and trade. Following his graduate medical training and internal medicine practice, Dr. Acheson moved from England to teach at Tufts University where he also established a successful lab researching foodborne pathogens.In 2002, Dr. Acheson became the Chief Medical Officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), and he later became the Director of the current FDA Office of Food Defense, Communication and Emergency Response.

In January 2008, he was named the FDA’s Associate Commissioner of Foods with an agency-wide leadership role for all food and feed issues, including health promotion and nutrition. An international author and a sought-after expert on public health and food safety, Dr. Acheson graduated from the University of London Medical School in 1980, and is a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians (London) and the Infectious Disease Society of America. David Acheson has one son and resides in Glenelg, Maryland with his wife, and four dogs.