David is the initiator, and co-founder with Frank White, of the Overview Institute, and heads the cognitive and media research programs of the Institute. He produced the first five Overview conferences that led to the founding of the Institute in 2008. He drafted the Overview Declaration which has been signed by all 22 leaders of the Overview Group, in space, cognitive science and simulation media.
He produced the Institute’s panel presentation “Bringing the Overview Effect Down to Earth”, at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in 2012. He followed the conference by publishing the long-form article, “The Case for Planetary Awareness” in Space Times Magazine, the house publication of the American Astronautical Association.
In 2021, David co-founded, with JC Chastain, The Center for Planetary Identity, focusing on the core space experience of the awareness of our planetary existence, and the potential that creates for incorporating this awareness into our personal identity thereby creating the potential for a planetary identity.
David studied nuclear engineering and physics at The University of Virginia and the psychology and sociology of perception and the philosophy of science at The University of Richmond. In the past four decades he has done independent cognitive research into human perception, with a special focus on its interaction with media images. His four privately printed and circulated books on his research got him invited lectures at six major university graduate schools in Design, Psychology, Virtual Reality, Theater, Film and one at the Duke University Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. He has received multiple US and International patents for the invention of The Magic Stage, a virtual reality theater technology based on his research.