Joel is a professor in the MENV and ORE professional graduate degree programs at the University of Colorado Boulder. Joel is a National Geographic Explorer, and for the last 20 years, Joel has worked as a researcher, consultant, engineer, and educator. He has projects across East and Southern Africa and Madagascar at national parks exploring issues of conservation management, climate change, health, resource extraction, human behavior, and recreation. He has also worked on forest management and wildfire in communities of the western United States. He has also served in various advisory and consulting capacities for communities, non-profits, and organizations in areas of conservation, sustainability, stakeholder engagement, recreation management, and community development. He currently partners with the state of Colorado’s Blueprint Initiative through the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade to lead their Grow Your Outdoor Industry, which seeks to build capacity, engender and empower inclusive and diverse stakeholder participation, and strengthen rural economies.
Joel has worked for the National Park Service, as an engineer in the automotive industry, and started an international non-governmental organization focusing on girls’ and women’s education and training in Uganda. His expertise is in sustainability planning, community development, stakeholder engagement, geospatial methods, analysis of human behavior, and higher education curriculum development.
Joel holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Florida, an MSc in Forestry from Oregon State University, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BS in German from the University of Michigan. Joel speaks German, Swahili, and is learning Spanish.