Natural Resources Educator
University of Wisconsin-Extension
About
Joe Bonnell has been involved in watershed and natural resource management for thirty years. He began his career as an environmental education volunteer with the US Peace Corps in Costa Rica. After the Peace Corps, Joe returned to his home state of Ohio to begin a doctoral program in natural resources at The Ohio State University where he also began his career in extension as a graduate research associate in watershed management. After completing his doctoral program, he accepted a full-time position as the director of watershed programs for OSU Extension, where he developed the Ohio Watershed Academy and Ohio Watershed Network to support community-based watershed protection efforts around the state. During his tenure with OSU, Joe also developed programs to support environmental leadership and volunteer naturalists. He also participated in multi-state extension programs as the OSU representative to the North Central Region Water Network and the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia research and extension initiative. Through these multi-state initiatives, Joe had the opportunity to collaborate with extension colleagues from the University of Wisconsin and to develop an appreciation for water resource issues across the Midwest. In 2018 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach environmental conflict management and conduct research on collaborative watershed management in the Dominican Republic. In addition to his PhD in Natural Resources, Joe has a bachelor’s degree in Zoology from Miami University of Ohio and an MS in Environmental Science from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs from Indiana University.