Joe Nappi graduated from Rowan University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in history. He has taught at Monmouth Regional High School in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, for 18 years. Currently, he teaches U.S. history to sophomores and a Holocaust, Genocide and Modern Humanity course to seniors. This class is offered through a partnership with Kean University, which has allowed him to take more than 600 students to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he has been honored to serve as a Museum Teacher Fellow since 2019. He also serves as a Key Club adviser and is a member of the Equity Council and Monmouth Helping its Own, the school’s charitable committee that he co-founded.

Nappi is an Alfred Lerner Fellow with the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous; a member of the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education and district liaison to the Diversity Council at Kean. His lessons and blog have been published by PBS. He has received numerous teaching awards, including the Ida and Jeff Margolis Medallion for Excellence in Multicultural Education, U.S. Navy Distinguished Educator, the Dr. Frank Kaplowitz Human Rights Educator of the Year Award and the Monmouth County Teacher of the Year in 2023

Daily, he inspires students to “be the change,” which has resulted in their efforts to end human trafficking, infuse Holocaust and genocide education nationwide and raise money for refugee resettlement, to name just a few.