JOAN ROSENSTEIN was born and educated in Philadelphia, PA. before beginning her undergraduate studies at Lake Forest College and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois. She received her B. S. in Painting from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. in 1964 and her M.F.A. in Painting & Printmaking from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI in 1966. During her graduate studies, she held an Art Department Teaching Fellowship. In later years, she received a Residency Fellowship at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Sweet Briar, VA. in addition to 2 Scholarly Activities Grants & a Sabbatical Grant from her employer, Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. Also, in 1989, 1993, 1994 and in 1995, she received grants from the Arts Council of Montgomery County, Rockville, MD for her own photographic explorations. In 1994, she received a grant from the Humanities Council of Montgomery County in conjunction with an exhibition she curated as Director of the Art Gallery at Montgomery College on the Rockville Campus. In June 1997, upon her retirement from the Art Department, the Board of Trustees of Montgomery College granted her the status of Professor Emerita and awarded her the Bronze Medallion in recognition of her thirty years of distinguished service to the College.

Joan Rosenstein was a painter and was Acting Head of the Education Department at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for a year before joining the Art Department faculty at Montgomery College in 1967. Changing media in 1983, she studied photography in the United States and Europe with Jerry Uelsmann, Sally Mann, George Krause, Ralph Gibson, Ted Orland, Martha Casanave, Edna Bullock, Les Krims, Jean-Pierre Cannelle, Cole Weston, Susan Mieseles, Jeff Dunas, Connie Imboden, and Rafael Navarro. Her work has been published and exhibited nationally in over 160 group shows and 16 solo exhibitions.

With her husband Ken, Joan also operates a photograph restoration service called R&R Photography.