Joseph’s research interests lie at the intersection of African American history, Black intellectual history, Black women’s history, and the history of American religious reform. He is currently at work on a monograph that examines how Black women active during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries forged an intellectual movement steeped in religious thought, and the ways in which their ideas influenced campaigns for racial and gender reform. Joseph also established and runs The Eulogy Project, a digital humanities initiative and online repository dedicated to the curation of Black memorials produced across time and space. His research has been supported and recognized by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the Louisville Institute, and the Ford Foundation.
Joseph joined Lehigh University in the fall of 2023 after completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Richards Civil War Era Center and the Africana Research Center at Penn State University. Prior to academia, he worked as a Program Manager at a nonprofit student support organization and as a Mental Health Professional at the largest mental health organization in Illinois.