Originally from Minnesota in the United States, Joel attended Gustavus Adolphus College, a small liberal arts university. He then completed his PhD in chemistry at Purdue University. He moved to New Zealand as an ice hockey player in 2017, playing for the Botany Swarm in East Auckland. He applied for a job at the University of Auckland, where he is a Research Fellow based at the School of Chemical Sciences. A passionate science communicator who regularly appears on media airwaves and in news outlets, Joel’s work focuses on air pollution, aerosol chemistry and environmental health.

Joel is a freelance writer and used to write the science section in Paste, a US pop culture magazine, and has written for The Spinoff.