Editor Profile

Joseph M Erwin

University/Organization: The George Washington University

Country: United States

 Biography

Dr. Joseph Erwin earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Davis, in biological psychology, with emphases on primatology, behavioral genetics, and comparative and developmental psychology. He did three years of post-doctoral research on reproductive biology and behaviour at the University of Washington.

His career included four years of teaching at Humboldt State University, service as Curator of Primates for the Chicago Zoological Society, full-time employment as Associate Editor of National Geographic Research, the carefully peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal of the National Geographic Society, and employment by BIOQUAL, Incorporated, an NIH research contract company, where he became Vice President and Director of the Division of Neurobiology, Behaviour, and Genetics.

Academic appointments included American University (Research Professor of Psychology), University of Maryland School of Medicine (Visiting Professor of Physiology), VA-MD Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech (Affiliate Professor of Pathology and Biomedical Science), and currently, George Washington University (Research Professor of Anthropology). He recently served as Director of Behavioural Health at the California National Primate Research Center at University of California, Davis (full-time for six months). Since 2003 he has been an Independent Consulting Primatologist.

Projects have included the Sulawesi Primate Project in Indonesia (1985-2000), and the Great Ape Aging Project (1996 to present). He established the American Society of Primatologists, the Mattole Center for Science and Education, and the Foundation for Comparative and Conservation Biology. He served as Founding Editor of the American Journal of Primatology beginning in 1980, and as the Series Editor of Comparative Primate Biology, a 3000-page five volume treatise. He also edited two other books and published more than 100 articles in scientific journals and contributed many chapters to collected works.