Josh Ellis

Josh has been with MPC since 2006. He directs many of MPC’s urban and regional planning initiatives, most notably through Great Rivers Chicago, Transform Illinois, and our work in Stormwater Management and Water Supply Management. Through on-the-ground initiatives like robust community planning for investments throughout Chicago’s 150+ mile of riverfront, technical assistance to municipalities throughout northeastern Illinois, and facilitation of diverse stakeholder groups—such as the Calumet Stormwater Collaborative—he leads MPC’s multiple strategies to balance community aspirations, ecosystem needs, economic growth, and sound public policy. 

He is a frequent public speaker, and has also led many of MPC’s research projects on a range of urban and regional challenges, including Immeasurable Loss: Modernizing Lake Michigan Water Use, Bus Rapid Transit: Chicago’s New Route to Opportunity, and Before the Wells Run Dry. He is an alumnus of MPC’s research assistant program, and continues to manage fellowship opportunities at MPC.

Josh is a member of the Midwest Leadership Council of the National Parks Conservation Association, and a Board member at PODER, which serves adult Latino immigrants with a mission to provide the necessary academic tools to promote human dignity, increase employment potential, and facilitate participation in the larger community. A New Hampshire native, Josh resides in Chicago’s South Loop where he is a Board member of the Greater South Loop Association. He managed a small school in Japan before his graduate studies in public policy and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago.  His honors thesis, published in Water, Environmental Security and Sustainable Rural Development: Conflict and Cooperation in Central Eurasia, compared the political discourse of marsh restoration in southeastern Iraq with the environmental history of the region.

Read Josh’s MPC Spotlight