Current Fellow
Ryan Haupt
Ryan Haupt is serving as the 2019-2020 GSA Science Policy Fellow in Washington, D.C.
As the GSA Science Policy Fellow, Haupt is serving as the "in-house" fellow, working with GSA's Director for
Geoscience Policy to bring science and scientists into the policy process. This position acts as a science policy
liaison, keeping GSA members informed, involved, and represented in national policy on topics including research
funding, energy and natural resource assessments, climate change policy, and natural hazard mitigation and response.
Haupt is a Ph.D. candidate in the Geology and Geophysics Department at the University of
Wyoming, where he studies the dietary ecology of living and extinct animals, in particular sloths, which he began
studying with his master of science degree from Vanderbilt University. Haupt has extensive geological and biological
training and experience, beginning with his undergraduate bachelor of science degrees in Environmental Geology and
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, including fieldwork all around
California and in the neotropics. Haupt also served as a GeoCorps-GIP intern at Florissant Fossil Beds National
Monument in Colorado. His current research involves developing and refining tools to determine diet in organisms
that tend to confound traditional methods, such as sloths.