Profiles

Featured in this issue

Presently, Joel I. Cohen is a Visiting Scholar at the Nicholas School for the Environment of Duke University, where his studies focus on biodiversity in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Park, its connections to biodiversity and agricultural practices, and effective means of communicating among the Canal’s populace. He is mentored by Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation at Duke University. In July 1992, he completed the “Environmental Communication Certificate Program” with the Nicholas School.

His PhD is in plant breeding and genetics, awarded through the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Massachusetts, after serving as an agricultural volunteer in the Peace Corps. There, he worked as an extension agent in the upland hill environments of Nepal. He has taught students, from secondary through college, in biology, biodiversity, and soils through the Audubon Naturalist Society at Woodend, Maryland.

His career also includes over 20 years in international agricultural research and support, working for the U.S. Government, then for international non-governmental organizations, advancing modern tools of genetic research, plant breeding, and genetic resource initiatives for national and international gene banking, and implementing other international center initiatives. For eight years, he and his family lived in The Netherlands, where he served as Director of an international bioresearch and policy service, stressing the importance of communication in science. Consequently, many of his publications were co-authored and edited with scientists and participants from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

After international service, Dr. Cohen developed a second career in education, specifically secondary, undergraduate, and adult-class work. This included courses on The Living Soil and Biodiversity for the Audubon Naturalist Society. Here, he was influenced by Drs. Wilson and Lovejoy. Upon their passing, a poem was published on the significance of their lives, The Passing of Courage: An Homage to E.O. Wilson and Thomas Lovejoy. This led to two other pieces appearing on the George Washington University website, PLANET FORWARD. These include: With Book In Hand: Continuing the Work of Lovejoy and Wilson on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, and Don’t Pass Me By, A Fable of Trees and Family.

The diversity of professional choices made in Dr. Cohen’s career resulted from experiences of one type leading to another area in which he felt deficient. His exposure to teaching and training while overseas began his path to education, eventually publishing in educational journals. During his work with Duke, he has led a symposium on the environment, agriculture and the Chesapeake Bay for the Crop Science Society of America, and a second one, on saving seeds.
Email contact: cohenji@comcast.net