Joshua Roe is a 5th Year Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management pursuing a degree in Recreation, Parks and Tourism. His research focuses on Recreation and Parks with emphasis on Place Attachment Theory.
Origin: 6th generation from Eastern Kentucky
Past Experience: Worked in outdoor recreation for 10 years, taught ESL and Business Spanish in South Korea and Spain, opened his own Rock Climbing guide service company in Korea. Bachelor’s in Spanish, Master’s in Appalachian Studies focused on the impacts of linear recreation infrastructure on local communities. Worked in many different countries and areas: electrician, teacher, farmer…
Favorite UF memory: Being the Teaching Assistant for UF Down Under Experience in New Zealand during summer 2017 for 16 students during a month. He made great connections with students, which he keeps even today
Favorite project: working on his dissertation under the mentorship of Dr. Gibson. He feels like he is “working on the shoulders of giants” to get his project done
Most valuable learning from UF: All of it! Being able to triangulate all the knowledge in tourism, recreation, parks administration, geography, mapping, guiding theories, and leisure. Seeing all of that come together for his knowledge is outstanding.
Person he most admires: Dr. Gibson, “She has been incredibly patient during my multiple hospitalizations from being hit by automobiles and is so knowledgeable in the field of Leisure Studies and all of the relevant theories that it is truly amazing.” Also Dr. Dodd, Dr. Sagas, and all the professors at the department for their level of understanding in academia.
Favorite travel experience: Hard to pick one! He has lived outside the US 7 times now. The experience that had the strongest impact and shaped his life was his first international experience: a study abroad program to Uruguay of 11 months during High School. Living in a big city immersed in a different language and culture was life changing.
Dream place you haven’t been yet: The British Isles: Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He wants to explore the region of his family heritage.
Hobbies: He is a certified HAM radio technician, a certified swift water rescue technician, and enjoys model trains with his daughter and son. He is an avid cyclist and does everything outdoors including rock climbing, kayaking, wilderness camping, alpine climbing, mountaineering…
Fun fact: He is the only person in his family (around 55 cousins!) that has lived outside the US and is bilingual. He is a first generation college student and is finishing his PhD. And also he has been hit by a car 4 times during the 4 years he has been at UF and is still pushing forward.
More about Joshua…
Joshua has worked as a practitioner in the industry for around 10 years before deciding to pursue his PhD. He used to run a company providing guide services for rock climbing, kayaking, canoeing, and hiking in Kentucky. However, his guiding trajectory is not restricted to the southeastern US: he has also guided in Mexico, Alaska, Canada, Korea, and Ecuador, as well as in various national parks around the US. Besides guiding, Josh is fluent in Spanish and has taught English and Spanish in South Korea for two years and taught at a private institution in Spain.
From working in the field, Joshua learned a lot about the visitors: their profiles, attitudes, motivations and connection to the parks. This experience enticed him to pursue a PhD and study more “how” and “why” people become attached to specific recreation areas, so he could help researchers and practitioners to understand the public and (lack of) diversity in various recreation spaces. He is hopeful that with demographic diversity changes in the US, parks will draw interest from a greater diversity of people as well. When different people feel attracted and attached to a park, it promotes a personal sense of pride and ownership to the area, which increases preservation concerns and the likelihood these individuals will engage directly or indirectly on conservation efforts. He wisely sees his work as “a small part of a bigger issue of taking care of the only planet we have to live in.”
Joshua is currently working on his dissertation advised by Dr. Heather Gibson and Dr. Jinwon Kim, to be finished in Summer 2020. His project analyzes Alachua County, Florida as the point of interest and measures the geographic distance of residency and place attachment to the point of interest, focused on understanding whether or not proximity plays a role in place attachment for different socio-economic and demographic groups. His long-term goal is to continue to focus on place attachment and explore further inputs to the topic from other areas of study such as psychology. He also plans to pioneer longitudinal studies on place attachment focusing on dynamics of time and place in periods of up to 10 years, to understand how evolutions on the space may drive place attachment levels change.
So far, Joshua has co-authored two publications, one while on his MA degree and the other one while on his PhD. The most recent study was conducted in collaboration with other departments at UF and explores vector-borne diseases explored by ticks in Florida.
When Josh is not studying or working on his research he loves to cycle and take his two young children and his wife to his world of parks and recreation. In the past years, Joshua has also assisted the EFTI program UF Disney Academic Experience (UF DEX), guiding and assisting Canadian students during their immersion week in the Gator Nation as well as homecoming games. EFTI is grateful for Josh’s contributions to the institute and the department of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management. We are looking forward to see his dissertation and we wish him the best of luck for his future endeavors, knowing he will always be part of our EFTI history.
