Dr. Joe Reese is a recently retired Professor Emeritus of Geology. For 23 years, he was a faculty member in the Department of Biology, Earth and Environmental Sciences at Pennsylvania Western University, Edinboro. Joe was born in Michigan, the Great Lakes state, and has lived in northwestern Pennsylvania for much of his life, the last 20+ years within a stone’s throw of the Lake Erie shore. 

Inspired by boyhood adventures with his father to U.S. national parks and other natural settings, including sojourns to Lake Superior beaches to collect agates, Joe became more than curious about geology. He pursued his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught a range of undergraduate courses at Edinboro and counts among his favorites Earth history and Tectonics of North America. Earlier in his 30+ year career, he conducted research on continent evolution and the formation of mountains, with the evolution of Laurentia (North America) and the Grenville Province being of special interest. Study of rocks in and around the Great Lakes has been integral to telling these geologic stories. 

Later, his interests drifted to Earth-system history and place-based geoscience education. Specifically, over my career, I used imagery from space to study Earth-system processes and environmental changes and explored using local earth systems as means to educate. Post-retirement, he continues to use imagery from space to study Earth-system processes and environmental changes and to explore his local Earth system in northwestern Pennsylvania. Earth systems and environmental issues of the Great Lakes Watershed are a particular focus. Continuing from his boyhood adventures, he has traveled extensively throughout the Great Lakes, visiting and immersing himself in the geology, natural history, human-environment interactions, history, and culture of this region. 

Joe is also an avid explorer of the cultural geographic aspects of the craft beer industry, co-authoring pioneering works on the topic. Although geoscience and education are his passion and vocation, he enthusiastically delves into roots music of all sorts, art, travel, hiking, good food and drink, and other such endeavors.