Joanna is an award-winning journalist with over 20 years of writing experience that includes a niche expertise in technical science, a passion which first began when completing her B.A. in Professional Writing at Carnegie Mellon University in 2002.
A social entrepreneur at heart, she is in the early stages of building a global company that will help young people living with difficult chronic illnesses including type 1 diabetes like her daughter. In 2014, she founded and ran Journal Junkies, a 501c3 nonprofit in Springfield, MA that helped high school students strengthen their voices through digital storytelling. She recruited a diverse board of directors that included a Yale University professor and a former refugee from Bhutan, secured funding, a free workspace, government support, and a class of low-income students who persevered as high school journalists in spite of troubling circumstances. Her biggest win: landing her students the opportunity to meet the first Latino Supreme Court Justice in the United States, Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Joanna's roles have included: Senior Editor at WebMD/Medscape covering Neurology and Psychiatry, Senior Science Writer at The University of Pittsburgh's Innovation Institute, a top 15 recipient of utility patents among universities worldwide, Innovation Advancement Coordinator, UConn Office of the Vice President, and Communications Specialist at Yale University's Consultation Center.
In 2006, she 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, she was awarded the "Wisdom House Writer's Fellowship," a creative writing competition sponsored by The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, where she wrote her first screenplay Smileytown©.
In 2019, Joanna began pursuing her M.A. in Teaching Writing, Advanced Academics at Johns Hopkins University. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2002 with a B.A. in Professional Writing, University and College Honors. For her undergraduate Senior Honors Thesis project, she produced an original film documentary that investigated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in Pennsylvania. She also worked as a writing intern for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and ran the Arts and Living section of CMU's student newspaper, The Tartan.
