Staff Bio: Josh Thomas

Josh Thomas ended a long hiatus from the AIDS movement in 2006 by traveling to the International AIDS Conference in Toronto to report for his first day at CHAMP. After serving a year as an intern while completing his bachelor’s degree, Josh moved to the Providence office in 2007 to continue as CHAMP’s Administrative and Research Assistant.

In the early nineties, a younger Josh first engaged in a spectrum of social justice activism in the AIDS, anti-war and reproductive justice movements, including several years first in ACT UP/Austin and later in ACT UP/New Orleans. In New Orleans, he co-coordinated the Louisiana Folk Life and Crafts area of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in the mid-1990s.

Upon learning of his seropositive HIV/HCV status, Josh relocated to New York City to secure access to health care. There he engaged in a period of HCV treatment and self-care and eventually stepped back into AIDS activism. During his decade in NYC, Josh overcame his fear of athletic pursuits, becoming an avid bicyclist, and finally completed his B.A. in Geography/Sociology from Hunter College (CUNY) in 2007. Josh cooks a mean chicken fried steak and gets on famously with his grandma.