Josh Trapani

Josh Trapani is Director of Policy Analysis at the Association of American Universities (AAU), an association of 60 U.S. and two Canadian public and private research universities, where he serves as AAU’s chief data analyst on research and higher education policy issues. Josh joined AAU in 2010 from the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he staffed the Science for Policy Project and the National Commission on Energy Policy. Josh came to D.C. as the American Geophysical Union’s Congressional Fellow, spending a year in the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein, then went to the USDA Forest Service’s Policy Analysis staff as a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. A paleontologist by training, his research applied quantitative methods to understanding morphological evolution. Josh received bachelor’s degrees in anthropology and geology from SUNY Binghamton, a doctorate from the University of Michigan, and spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado. He performed fieldwork in the U.S., Mexico, and Ethiopia, and has published a dozen peer-reviewed papers as well as numerous essays and book reviews.