Joseph T. Bonivel Jr., PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. He is a subject matter expert for the Department of Defense (DOD), where he leads technology incubation and maturation for the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s Journal of DoD Research & Engineering. Bonivel is a former AAAS big data and analytics science and technology policy fellow at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In his AAAS fellowship role, he fostered entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology commercialization of research that has been previously supported by government-funded research. He served a similar fellowship role at United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Bonivel’s role at USAID was twofold in helping to understand how digital technology can stop the spread of health epidemics (Ebola) and designing and developing predictive algorithms to measure USAID’s influence on their bilateral donors and partners. 

Before his AAAS fellowships, Bonivel was a senior research engineer for United Technologies Research Center (UTRC). At UTRC he was responsible for developing, identifying, and implementing protocols to evaluate the mechanical performance of novel materials and structures within the various businesses of United Technologies Corporation.

Bonivel holds a PhD in Mechanical and Materials Science Engineering from the University of South Florida. He earned a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of South Carolina. 

He was recently awarded Technologist of the Year by the Southern New England Association of Technical Professionals and was profiled by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of its 100 Modern Men. Bonivel has also spent time teaching engineering and physics at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.