His research interests include alternative methods for teaching social studies, character education, visual literacy, social studies curriculum, and teaching with film. Waters serves as the conference coordinator for the International Society for Social Studies and is the editorial assistant for The Journal of Social Studies Research. Waters has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles related to social studies education which have been featured in journals like Action in Teacher Education, The Journal of Social Studies Research, and Social Education. In addition, he co-authored the book Reel Character Education: A Cinematic Approach to Character Development (2010, co-author W. Russell). Waters earned his PhD in social science education from the University of Central Florida, and prior to moving into higher education, taught middle school social studies.