When David Adler, program officer, joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2008, he brought extensive experience working with community-based agencies and individuals to help advance public health initiatives. He started his work at the Foundation with the Childhood Obesity team and joined the Coverage team in 2010, initially working as a communications officer. In his role as program officer, he oversees a variety of efforts that advance the Foundation’s goal of ensuring that 95 percent of all Americans have stable, affordable coverage by 2020.
David believes that RWJF plays a vital role because “it is able to get leaders in different sectors and with different philosophies working together.” In his work on the Coverage team he oversees a number of projects that help policy-makers share their work with each other as they implement the Affordable Care Act and key constituencies understand the implications of the law.
Previously, David directed communications for The Food Trust in Philadelphia, where he helped to produce compelling research reports that promoted increased access to healthy food in all communities. He achieved widespread media coverage for The Food Trust in USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NPR. He also helped to manage the Fresh Food Financing Initiative, a first-of-its-kind grant and loan program to encourage supermarket development in underserved neighborhoods throughout Pennsylvania, which has since become a model nationwide for programs to attract supermarkets to food deserts. Harvard University recognized the initiative as one of the nation’s most innovative government programs.
David’s early career included teaching in adult literacy at Philadelphia’s Lutheran Settlement House and working in a pre-kindergarten program in Bilbao, Spain. He also served as a program coordinator of an initiative that allowed health care workers to advance in nursing careers as part of a $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Adler received a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College, a master of studies in Hebrew and Jewish Studies from the University of Oxford and a master of public administration from the University of Pennsylvania.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he now resides in Princeton with his partner Cole, an administrator at Princeton University. He enjoys running and has completed three (and counting!) half-marathons. He also loves to travel and study foreign languages.
