Dr. Joseph A. DeVito received a BA from Hunter College in 1960 (with a major in speech and a minor in Spanish), an MA from Temple University in 1962 (with a major in speech along with some sociology), and a Ph.D. in 1964 from the University of Illinois (with a minor in linguistics and a major in speech). After receiving his Ph.D., Joseph returned to his alma mater, Hunter College-in-the-Bronx [which later became Lehman College], to teach. Later, he moved to Queens College and then to Hunter (after which he retired from teaching) — all within the City University of New York. During his amazing teaching career, Dr. DeVito taught a wide variety of graduate and undergraduate courses, with a concentration on the undergraduate level and mainly on the introductory courses.

At various times, Professor DeVito has served on the editorial boards of Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication Education, Communication Monographs, Journal of Communication, Communication Quarterly, etc. He has also served as consulting editor to publishers: Harper & Row, Random House, Waveland Press, and HarperCollins. Devito also served as ETS coordinator of the committee to construct the DANTES Public Speaking Test for the Educational Testing Service. A prolific author, DeVito has written or edited more than 20 ebooks in the field of communication, almost all published by Pearson.