Joanna is an award-winning journalist and science writer with more than 20 years of experience writing for universities, nonprofits, newspapers, and for-profit corporations across the U.S. She currently works as an Innovation Advancement Coordinator at UConn, Technology Commercialization Services, Office of the Vice President for Research, where she supports cutting-edge scientific, innovative, and technological developments and entrepreneurial initiatives across the UConn ecosystem.
Joanna is also a freelance writer for several publications including BioSpace. She recently worked in full time roles at WebMD and Medscape as Senior Editor, Neurology/Psychiatry, and as a Senior Science Writer for The University of Pittsburgh's Innovation Institute, which is ranked a top 20 recipient of U.S. utility patents among universities worldwide.
In 2006, Joanna received a First Place Arts and Entertainment Writing, and an Honorable Mention Sol Price Prize for Responsible Journalism Award from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalism (SPJ). In 2010, Joanna was awarded the "Wisdom House Writer's Fellowship," a creative writing competition sponsored by The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. It was there that she wrote her first original screenplay Smileytown, a dark comedy feature film that takes place in a retirement community.
Joanna is also a social entrepreneur. She recently founded a science writing LLC and is building a healthcare startup in the diabetes space. In 2014, Joanna founded and ran Journal Junkies, a 501c3 nonprofit organization in Springfield, Massachusetts that helped young people find their voices through storytelling. She recruited a board of directors, funders, a free work space, and a class of low-income students who persevered as high school journalists in spite of troubling life circumstances. Joanna and the Journal Junkies students attended an interview with NBA legend, Alonzo Mourning, and met the first Latino Supreme Court Justice in the United States, Sonia Sotomayor.
Joanna graduated from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in 2002 with a B.A. in Professional Writing, University and College Honors. In 2019, she began pursuing her M.A. in Teaching Writing, Advanced Academics at Johns Hopkins University.
For Joanna's Undergraduate Senior Honors Thesis project at CMU, she produced an original film documentary that investigated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Joanna also worked as a writing intern for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and ran the arts and living section of CMU's newspaper. Today, she lives in New England with her 10-year-old little warrior who has Type 1 Diabetes.
