David Colander was a distinguished College Professor at Middlebury College. He has authored, coauthored, or edited over 40 books and over 150 articles on a wide range of economic topics.

He earned his B.A. at Columbia College and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. at Columbia University. He studied at the University of Birmingham in England and at Wilhelmsburg Gymnasium in Germany. Professor Colander has taught at Columbia University, Vassar College, the University of Miami, and Princeton University as the Kelley Professor of Distinguished Teaching. He was also a consultant to Time-Life Films, a consultant to Congress, a Brookings Policy Fellow, and Visiting Scholar at Nuffield College, Oxford.

He has been president of both the History of Economic Thought Society and the Eastern Economics Association. He has also served on the editorial boards of theJournal of Economic Perspectives, The Journal of Economic Education, The Journal of Economic Methodology, The Journal of the History of Economic Thought, The Journal of Socio-Economics, and The Eastern Economic Journal.He was chair of the AEA Committee on Electronic Publishing, a member of the AEA Committee on Economic Education, and was associate editor for content of the Journal of Economic Education.

He was married to a pediatrician, Patrice. In their spare time, the Colanders designed and built an oak post-and-beam house on a ridge overlooking the Green Mountains to the east and the Adirondacks to the west. The house is located on the site of a former drive-in movie theater. They lived in both Florida and Vermont until Colander passed away in December of 2023.