Bish Paul

Dr. Biswajit (“Bish”) Paul is a scientist and civil-rights advocate who has dedicated his career to advancing equity and social justice. He serves as the policy lead for the foundation in Washington state, where he invests in quality early learning, K-12, and postsecondary programs and policies in district and public charter schools.

Bish’s passion for equity and social justice is rooted in his intersectional lived experiences as a queer, person of color, first-generation college student, from a low-income immigrant household.

Throughout his career, he has straddled legislative advocacy, policymaking, research analytics, education reform, and community activism, all in service of rewriting inequitable laws. Previously, he founded and led the statewide Washington STEM Advocacy Coalition, catalyzed cross-industry collaboration as the Global Head of DEI at Snap Inc., worked in the California state legislature, and managed 50-states tech policy.

Bish has a bachelor’s and doctoral degree in Cell Molecular biology from the University of Washington. In his dissertation, Bish successfully demonstrated that genome editing can be used to engineer T-cells in the immune system so that they become resistant to HIV entry.

Fun facts:

• For self care, Bish likes to garden and to explore the Pacific Northwest outdoors with his husband, Theo, and their pit bull-boxer, Bae.
• He is also on a decades-long quest to find local authentic Hyderabadi biryani!