Dave was raised in Northeastern New Jersey and moved to South Carolina to attend college. He received his B.S. in Zoology and M.S. in Botany from Clemson University, a Master of Agriculture from Auburn University, and his Ph.D. in Entomology from Texas A&M University, with a focus on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Toxicology. While finishing his Ph.D., he was a postdoctoral fellow at Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine analyzing the membrane proteins on the bacteria Brucellosis abortus for the development of a vaccine for cattle. After graduating from Texas A&M University, Dave was a National Institutes of Mental Health Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and visiting faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, working on Insect Developmental Neuroendocrinology. He left UNC Chapel Hill to take a faculty position at the University of Utah and leaving as an Adjunct Associate Professor in 2001.

Starting in 2001, Dave was the Research and Outreach Coordinator for the WSU Small Farms Program headquartered in Puyallup, WA. While at WSU, his research focused on alternative nontoxic strategies for managing cabbage maggot and carrot rust fly populations. Also, while at WSU, he was on the Board of Directors at Tilth Producers, an NGO representing Washington State Organic and sustainable farmers. While on the board, he started the now popular Farm Walk series that continues to this day, and is now run by the Tilth Alliance NGO. Dave joined the Evergreen State College faculty as an Adjunct member beginning in 2007, where he taught the Practice of Sustainable Agriculture at the Organic Farm. In 2009, Dave left Evergreen to become the Education Director and Farm Manager at 21 Acres, a non-profit education farm in Woodinville, WA. He returned to Evergreen as a permanent faculty member in 2010. He continued to teach at the Evergreen Organic farm teaching the Practice of Organic Farming and an Insect Pollinator program, focusing on apiculture practices. He retired from Evergreen in 2023.