JOSEPH SHEPHERD MILLER, ESQ.

Joseph Shepherd Miller, Esq. is Founder and Founding Board Chair of The Washington Center for Technology Policy Inclusion (WashingTECH) -- the nation's first organization focused exclusively on amplifying the diverse viewpoints of technology public policymaking experts outside the Washington, DC. beltway.  He served as the organization's first President & CEO from 2014-2023. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational charity based in Reston, Virginia in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. His life's work is to defend America's democracy and diversity by fostering an inclusive narrative about technology's impact on society.

 

Prior to founding WashingTECH, Joe served as Deputy Director and Senior Policy Director of the Media and Technology Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies--America's Black Think Tank. Previously, Joe served as a Fellow with the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council, where he advocated on Capitol Hill and before the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of underrepresented communities struggling to access critical technology.

 

Prior to his advocacy career, Joe spent over a decade working in broadcast advertising sales and programming at stations including New York's Hot 97 and WQXR-FM, New York's Classical Music Radio Station (now owned by

New York Public Radio but which from 1944-2009 was the radio station of

The New York Times). 

 

Joe is currently a member of the Center for Democracy and Technology's

Advisory Council, Google's Next Gen Policy Leaders cohort, and was recognized as a Media Trailblazer by the Consumer Electronics Show in 2019. He is also a recipient of the Rainbow Push Coalition's 2019 Media and Technology Inspiring Leaders Award.

 

Joe is admitted to practice law in New York, the District of Columbia, and before the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a proud alumnus of the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, from which he graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science in Digital Media Management & Production, Concentration in Music, and Minor in Business Administration, where he was an Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society inductee. He earned his Juris Doctor from New York Law School, which he attended at night, where he served as an editor of Media Law & Policy -- the law school's Media Law & Policy Journal.

 

Joe is also an alumnus of the renowned Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art & the Performing Arts at New York's Lincoln Center, on which the "Fame!" Broadway musical, film, and tv series are based. There, he majored in music, studying jazz performance and composition under Jazz Education Hall of Fame member Justin DiCioccio, within the first accredited secondary jazz program in the United States. Joe's fellow LaGuardia alums include Sarah Paulson, Adrien Brody, Omar Epps, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Marlon Wayans, and Adrien Grenier.

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A native of Manhattan's Upper West Side, Joe resides with his wife and 2 daughters in Northern Virginia, where he advocates locally for equity in 

Fairfax County's Public Schools.