About Joe

Joe was recently elected to the NCSS Board of Directors, and also serves on the iCivics National Educator Network. He sat four years on the Teaching Tolerance advisory board, and works with a number of other organizations that advocate and work actively to improve social studies education. Joe is passionate about ensuring that social studies educators have the resources and support they need to succeed and to impart upon their students an education that will prepare them to be active and informed members of society.    

Joe taught social studies at the high school level for nine years and worked three years as a K-12 Social Studies Teacher Leader in Madison, Wisconsin. He currently holds the position of Social Studies Specialist with the Maine Department of Education, and teaches an elementary social studies methods course at the University of Maine.

Joe currently holds membership positions on the NCSS Task Force on Advocacy and the NCSS Task Force on Inquiry, the NCSS Government and Public Relations Committee, the NCSS Social Education Select Subcommittee, the NCGE Editorial Board for The Geography Teacher, the Maine Commission for Community Service, the Maine Bicentennial Commission - Education Subcommittee, the National Geographic: Maine Advisory Council, the Council for State Social Studies Specialists, the Maine Council for the Social Studies, and the Maine Jump$tart Alliance, and served on the Wisconsin Social Studies Department of Instruction Social Studies Advisory Council from 2015-2017. 

Joe presented eight times at the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies yearly conference between 2006 and 2017, represented Wisconsin as a presenter at the 2014 Great Lakes Regional Social Studies Conference, and was selected for the Center for the Study of the American Constitution fellow's program from 2013-14. He has presented four times at the NCSS National Conference, and served as approved delegate in 2014 and 2018 in the NCSS House of Delegates.