At Hierakonpolis, Joel works as a surveyor, cartographer and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialist. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Egyptology in 1980 from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Master’s Degree from the same university in 1983. Since that time, he has worked as a Professional Land Surveyor and GIS Professional in Southern California.
Joel has been working at Hierakonpolis since 2002 where he has completed detailed maps of a number of loci, including HK6, Old Kingdom Hill, New Kingdom Hill, HK64, and the Fort. More recently, he has prepared maps and plans for the upcoming publication of the C Group cemetery at Hierakonpolis (HK-27C). He is a frequent contributor to the Nekhen News with updates about his share of the exciting work going on at Hierakonpolis.
Joel’s specialty is applying new surveying and cartographic technologies to archaeological sites. In 2003, the Hierakonpolis expedition was one of the first projects to obtain high-resolution commercial satellite imagery and apply it to an archaeological study before more recent applications such as Google Earth became commonplace. In 2007, he again used satellite imagery, this time a stereo pair of images, to create an accurate contour map of the entire site, along with HK's sister site across the river, Elkab. He has also done a GIS Time Animation at HK6. The background of the timeline was published in OLA 252, Egypt at its Origins 4 (Matthew Douglas Adams, ed. Peeters, 2016, pp 377-398). His GIS mapping also includes HK43, as well as a GIS of the Fort Cemetery based on its publication.
In 2012, Joel made a 3D scan of the Fort using an HDS (High Definition Surveying) laser scanner, which collected approximately one-hundred million survey points of the Fort and used the points, along with photographs, to create an accurate three-dimensional computer model. The scan was updated in 2023 to include the interior walls, the consolidation and repairs, and to plan out future work. More recently, he has applied hand-held LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology to create more detailed plans of the New Kingdom tombs.
Joel is also doing mapping work in other locations of Egypt for the Elkab project, the Joint Malqata Expedition's work on the West Bank of Luxor, a resurvey of the pyramid of Khufu at Giza (See JEA 102, 2016, pp 186-196), and a GIS of the Theban Necropolis. In addition to work in Egypt, He also is a consultant for mapping of California archaeological sites as well as for sites in the Bassar region of Togo, West Africa.
