Joshua Steckel is a college counselor at a public school in Brooklyn. He was selected as a thought-leader for the White House’s Reach Higher initiative and is a board member of various organizations dedicated to increasing opportunity in higher education. Steckel co-authored Hold Fast to Dreams: A College Guidance Counselor, His Students, and the Vision of a Life Beyond Poverty (The New Press) with his wife, Beth Zasloff. Zasloff and Steckel are married and live with their three children in Brooklyn. Their work on college access has been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and on NPR.