Joshua Elliott

Joshua Elliott is Chief Scientist at Renaissance Philanthropy, where he works at the intersection of science, technology, government, and philanthropy. He has spent more than 15 years developing and leading ambitious R&D programs across climate, artificial intelligence, computational science, and emerging technologies.

Before joining Renaissance Philanthropy, Elliott was a Programme Director at Quadrature Climate Foundation, where he developed strategies in solar radiation management, carbon removal, and climate resilience. He also founded the nonprofit science accelerator BiTS, built an innovation unit within Project InnerSpace, and helped incubate the ARC initiative for responsible climate-emergency R&D.

Earlier, he served as a Program Manager at DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, directing nearly $600 million in federal research programs focused on AI for science, climate and computational modeling, synthetic biology, critical minerals, and other advanced technology areas. Prior to DARPA, he spent nearly a decade at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory working on climate impacts, extreme events, agriculture, hydrology, energy systems, migration, and conflict.
Elliott holds a Ph.D. in theoretical high-energy physics from McGill University.