Joel supports the Client Services team by managing projects that advance our clients’ infrastructure, workforce, and economic development planning goals. For Friends of the High Line, Joel led the design and implementation of a comprehensive community engagement strategy on Manhattan’s West Side in the summer of 2021. Joel synthesized feedback gathered to develop recommendations for how the organization could best catalyze community wealth building and provide access to the community’s needs. In 2022, Joel coordinated and executed outreach and engagement for the City of Syracuse’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI). There, Joel built a suite of interactive engagement tools for residents of the city’s Southwest Gateway neighborhood to guide $10 million dollars of place-based investments according to their priorities.

Prior to Public Works Partners, Joel worked at the intersection of law and community development at Lawyers Alliance for New York. In this role, he coordinated the provision of legal technical assistance to community economic development organizations serving thousands of New Yorkers from disadvantaged and marginalized communities. Joel expanded technical assistance nationwide through capacity-building initiatives within a Lawyers Alliance-led consortium of legal technical assistance providers across the United States. Joel’s introduction to economic and community development policy came from time spent at New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG)’s Immigrant Protection Group, where he administered a Robinhood Foundation-funded program to refer newly work-authorized immigrants to job readiness programs.

Joel holds a Master of Regional Planning (MRP) from Cornell University and a BA in Government and Iberian Studies from Wesleyan University with a certificate in International Relations. Joel also holds a Pro Forma Fundamentals Certificate from the Urban Land Institute