After a foundational career in forestry and geospatial analysis, Joe is now a returning student at Riverside City College pursuing credentials in Cyber Defense. His transition into the digital security space is built on a track record of high-stakes data management, including projects where he developed frameworks for Urban Heat Island mitigation and mapped anthropocentric impacts on California’s critically sensitive wetlands using state of the art remote sensing technologies.

As a Chancellor's Climate Fellow, he is focused on a campus wide urban tree inventory project that utilizes industry-standard GIS and in situ methodologies to ensure the accuracy and transparency required for long-term tree inventory monitoring & management.

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Driven by the belief that safeguarding data is an essential yet often overlooked pillar of sustainability, he is preparing for a future role as a Cybersecurity Specialist within a natural resource agency. He recognizes that as climate resilience efforts become increasingly data-dependent, the protection of remote monitoring systems and socio-ecological datasets is critical. His unique blend of environmental field experience and emerging technical defense skills positions him to secure the vital information systems that will protect our planet’s most sensitive ecosystems from modern digital threats.