Joseph Erwin

Joseph M. Erwin is a research professor of anthropology at George Washington University and an independent consultant whose primary clients include BIOQUAL and The Gorilla Foundation. He held adjunct appointments as professor of physiology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Medicine, and professor of biomedical sciences and pathobiology at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was also previously research professor of psychology at the American University In Washington, D.C., and was vice president and director of the Division of Neurobiology, Behavior, and Genetics for BIOQUAL, Inc. He is executive director of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Foundation for Comparative and Conservation Biology (FCCB), which is dedicated to “Science in the Service of Conservation and Health.” He coordinates the Great Ape Aging Project and the Comparative Neurobiology of Aging Resource. Dr. Erwin founded the American Society of Primatologists in 1976, and later served as its president. He was founding editor of the American Journal of Primatology and series editor of Comparative Primate Biology. He was employed by the National Geographic Society as associate editor of National Geographic Research, has served on the editorial boards of Tropical Biodiversity, Zoo Biology, Journal of Medical Primatology, and the Journal of Wildlife Policy and Law. He is the former curator of Primates for the Chicago Zoological Society’s Brookfield Zoo. He was a member of the Primate Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission and served as an advisor to the Ape Taxon Advisory Group (APE-TAG) of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA). He currently is an advisor to the Primate Aging Database, the Alamogordo Primate Facility, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, and the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. He developed the Sulawesi Primate Project, a multidisciplinary field research project in Indonesia, beginning in 1985. His Ph.D. in psychobiology is from the University of California, Davis (1974). He currently writes, consults, and facilitates collaborative activities from his rural residence in south-central Pennsylvania.