Joe Tropea is an award winning filmmaker and Public Historian living and working in Baltimore City. He currently works for the Mayor's Office as curator at Baltimore City Hall. For over a decade he worked at the Maryland Center for History and Culture (formerly MdHS) as an archivist and curator, creating exhibitions, exhibition videos, writing and editing publications. 

His director credits include the award-winning 2013 documentary, Hit & Stay: a history of faith and resistance, 2018’s Sickies Making Films, and 2021's award-winning doc short, "Fugazi's Barber." He has produced narrative and documentary shorts and features including: Lights of Baltimore (2020), Icepick to the Moon (2018), and "Spare Rooms: A Family Fiction" (2014). Additionally he has created commercial work for national and regional clients including: STX, Career Valet, and Eddie's of Roland Park. In 2015 he co-founded Preserve the Baltimore Uprising Archive, a digital repository that seeks to preserve and make accessible materials related to the killing of Freddie Gray and related subsequent events in Baltimore City.