Josh Windsor is the Associate Director of Caves at Murray’s Cheese in New York City, where he develops and ages the Cave Aged line of specialty cheeses, including the 2019 American Cheese Society (ACS) “Best in Show” and World Cheese Awards 2025 “Best American Cheese” and “Best Cheddar” winner Stockinghall. In addition to being a seasoned affineur (someone who ages cheese), he is both an ACS Certified Cheese Professional and a Certified Cheese Sensory Evaluator. Josh shares his love of all things dairy by teaching cheese appreciation, science, and history at Murray’s Cheese Boot Camp. And since 2020 he has taught sensory evaluation for Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Science’s dairy short courses.

A modern day polymath, Josh holds a degree in philosophy from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University. He has served on the board of directors for several dance companies, has a penchant for contemporary music composition, and enjoys reading up on post-humanist philosophy. In addition to writing the cheese science column for Culture Magazine, Josh runs the Instagram account @theaffineur where he blends his interest in art, science, philosophy, and cheese in micro-essays about the craft of affinage.

Always seeking to foster a culture of learning and discovery in the cheese industry, Josh runs a quarterly cheese cave internship program at Murray’s Cheese that has trained scores of burgeoning affineurs. He serves on the board of directors for the Daphne Zepos Teaching Endowment funding a wide array of cheese research around the world and is an active member of the community biology lab, Genspace, where he explores the microbial world of cheese rinds. In 2025 he was recognized for his contributions to the cheese world and was inducted into the Guilde Internationale des Fromages.

Josh is sought out as an expert in dairy, cheese, affinage, and fermentation microbiology with a reputation as being a charismatic and passionate educator and speaker. He is regularly asked to speak at industry associations such as the International Dairy Deli Bakery Association, the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin’s Cheese State University, the Science of Raw Milk Cheese Conference, The Barnyard (a NYC based cheese education center), and the American Cheese Society. In addition he been an active participant in workshops such as the international collectives Future Organisms, Microbial Memories, and the Micobiology of Cheese at Tuft’s University.