My name is Joseph Amsili from Ithaca, NY. I went to the Lehman Alternative Community School, a small progressive middle and high school in the Ithaca area. It was there where I found my love for agriculture, environmental science, and community service. It was also where I was lucky to experience caring teachers, who inspired me to want to teach. Soon after graduating high school, I was fortunate to join up with visionaries behind a non-profit organization that had just completed its first year: The Youth Farm Project. My high school experiences led me to complete a B.S. in earth science and soil science at Cornell. After graduating college, I worked at the Cornell Soil Health Laboratory for two years where I gained a lot of experience with many low-cost and agronomically useful biological and physical soil health tests. These soil tests lend themselves beautifully towards teaching about soils as an integrated biological, physical, and chemical entity. Another reason for starting this website is that in Fall 2016 I will be starting a graduate program in the soil sciences at Penn State University. There, I will be studying soil biogeochemistry in a long-term cover crop cocktail field site.
Having the name Joseph lends itself to having many awesome nicknames. Since this website is dedicated to learning and teaching about soils, I figured that my nickname, soil joe, would be a catchy name for a website.
Contact: joseph.amsili@gmail.com
NOTE: The header image is of compacted surface soil from a pathway between vegetable beds and the soil adjacent to the field under sod.
Me exploring a volcanic soil pit on Pu’u Wa’a Wa’a on Hawai’i
Youth Farm Project Summer Program employees watch soil aggregates get pummeled by rain drops from the rain fall simulator. Me demonstrating how soil management can change a soil’s resiliency to a rainfall event. I used the compacted surface soil from the pathway between vegetable beds and the soil adjacent to the field under sod (The same two soil samples as the header image).
Soil Joe's Blog 