David Lighthall is Research Coordinator for the Relational Culture Institute, a new Fresno-based, non-profit organization whose mission includes developing collaborative solutions to farm labor problems in California based on a food system perspective. Dr. Lighthall has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Regional Development and Geography from the University of Iowa. His research interests include agricultural labor and immigration, sustainable agriculture, farmworker health, food system policy, and environmental health.

Prior to joining RCI, Dr. Lighthall was Executive Director of the California Institute for Rural Studies. While at CIRS, Dr. Lighthall directed the California Agricultural Workers Health Survey (CAWHS), a statewide health study of 971 California farm workers conducted by CIRS and funded by The California Endowment (TCE). The CAWHS has resulted in a series of publications on farm worker health, most notably Suffering In Silence: A Report on the Health of California's Agricultural Workers in 2000. The CAWHS is also serving as an empirical guidepost for TCE's five-year, $50 million Agricultural Workers Health Program (AWHP).

Dr. Lighthall is currently focusing on two issues that are integral to the goals of the AWHP: improving the health and well-being of California's farmworkers while maintaining the competitive position of California agriculture within the global food system.