Summary: Erik D. Olson, J.D., is director of the Health Program, and Senior Strategic Director for Food and Health at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). He has more than 30 years of experience in consumer, public health, and environmental policy. He oversees NRDC’s work on issues including antibiotics use in animal production, food waste, climate-healthy food, pesticides, toxic chemicals in food and consumer products, drinking water contamination, global mercury pollution, textile-related pollution in Asia, and other food, agriculture and toxics issues. Prior to joining NRDC, Olson was Senior Director of Food Programs at The Pew Charitable Trusts, where he managed campaigns to improve food safety, school nutrition standards, and food additives. At Pew he helped lead the successful effort to enact the first overhaul of the FDA’s food safety program in over 70 years. Previously, he was Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. In his previous 15-year stint at NRDC, he helped enact the Food Quality Protection Act and the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments. He has litigated major federal environmental cases ranging from the Exxon Valdez case to drinking water, Superfund, and other litigation. Olson is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Food Forum and is on the Board for Food Policy Action. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where served as an editor of the environmental law journal, and his A.B. from Columbia University.
