Joni co-directs the Center for School Reform at TERC, a nonprofit research and development institution aimed at improving mathematics and science teaching and learning. The Center has multiple projects researching the teaching and learning of STEM, creating and facilitating electronic communities, developing new science curricula, and implementing teacher development programs.

She is the Principal Investigator of the NSF funded MSPnet.org and  STEM Videohall: Connecting Communities Through Video and Discourse. Her work has focused on  the creation of multiple online communities of practice, as well as on the use of technology, especially video, as an effective tool for knowledge generation, mentoring, discourse, dissemination, and broadening access.