Joe earned his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering-Hydraulics (University of Iowa), his bachelor's degree in Forest and Environmental Biology, and has master’s degrees in biology, philosophy, and environmental engineering. His primary interests lie in the potential impacts of climate change on storm water infrastructure and interdisciplinary research that links hydrology, hydraulics and ecology. Prior to working at MUN, Joe was an assistant professor of water resources engineering at Rowan University, where he worked on potential climate change impacts of climate change. Joe worked as a postdoctoral scholar at North Carolina State University, where he developed models to simulate the effects of land-use change and climate change on watershed hydrology and instream temperature to assess potential long-term effects on aquatic organisms.