An Amazon.com vice president for 22 years, Paul Misener currently is Amazon’s Vice President for Global Innovation Policy and Communications. Paul is an engineer/scientist (Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Princeton University, 1985) and attorney (Juris Doctor, George Mason University, 1993; Distinguished Achievement Award, 2001). He is an inventor named in three patents.
The founder of Amazon’s global public policy organization, Paul served as the company’s Vice President for Global Public Policy from February 2000 to May 2016. Paul has testified before the United States Congress over 30 times and many dozens of times before other policymaking bodies around the world.
Paul had planned to become an astrophysicist and, under the guidance of the scientist for whom the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite is named, he conducted a research project in Princeton’s Physics Department involving an electromagnetic radiation detector that Paul designed around junction field effect transistors. Paul remains awed and fascinated by space and time, particularly as illuminated by the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
Paul loves to read and his physical book library holds well over one thousand volumes, including hundreds of rare and antiquarian books on history, politics, natural philosophy, and methods of science. In 2013, Paul chaired the technical subcommittee of the US Federal Aviation Administration’s advisory committee that recommended allowing commercial airline passengers to read electronic books and use other portable electronic devices during taxi, takeoff, and landing. He lives near Washington, DC.
