Joseph聽began his education as an architecture major at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, working as a draftsman for a while. To pay for college, he served in the Army National Guard for six years, where he served in Afghanistan. He received his MA from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (SLO). He is currently enrolled in the Ph.D.聽program at that University of New Mexico.聽The focus of his dissertation research is on various violent incidents and local vigilantism throughout the Southwest to find certain patterns that thread these disparate regions and events together.聽
His YouTube channel聽鈥淭he Cynical Historian鈥�聽has contributed to his continued development as a historian, and now has more than 150,000 subscribers and 15 million views across 250 videos.聽
Tentative title of dissertation:听鈥淕reat Excitement: Incidents of Violence in the American Southwest, 1848-1919鈥澛�