Joan facilitates partner and stakeholder communications, metrics tracking, and reporting in support of Illinois’ Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy. She is a member of the University of Illinois Extension NLRS Facilitation and Coordination Team.

Joan has a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from North Central College and brings 20 years of experience working in water resources research, education programming and outreach in cooperation with private, public, local, state, and federal partners. 

She brings technical expertise and educational outreach experience from:

• field and laboratory research with the Illinois Natural History Survey,
• fieldwork and technical report-writing for a soil consulting firm,
• fieldwork and educational programming and administration for a Soil and Water Conservation District (Ford County, IL),
• fieldwork and engineering design-work for USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (Ford and Vermilion Counties, IL) which included implementing program outreach and administration of many of Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy BMPs for various stakeholder groups,
• education program planning, delivery, evaluation and improvement for the Center for Great Lakes Literacy and IL-IN Sea Grant.

Joan also brings knowledge of educational program evaluation and grant-writing from her time working for EDSTAR Analytics as a project lead and qualitative data specialist for several formal, informal, public and private math and science programs in North Carolina.