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Joanna is an award-winning journalist with over 20 years of writing experience that includes a specialized focus in science and technology.
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Today, Joanna works as a Technical Grant Writer at Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department, the #1 ranked artificial intelligence program in the U.S. Joanna, a Carnegie Mellon alumna, was recently featured in an article about her career journey in tech that can be read here.
A social entrepreneur at heart, she is in the early stages of building a MedTech company that will help young people living with difficult chronic illnesses including type 1 diabetes like her daughter.
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Joanna is also the founder of a global science communications LLC specializing in technology commercialization. Her most recent assignments have included writing a white paper for the AUTM 2024 International Knowledge and Technology Leadership Summit held in Cape Town, South Africa, and a news article published 12/2/24 in BioSpace that examined how AI digital twins can ease data disparities and augment clinical research.
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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.
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Joanna's recent roles have included: Senior Science Writer at The University of Pittsburgh's Innovation Institute, a top 15 recipient of utility patents among universities worldwide, Senior Editor at WebMD/Medscape covering Neurology and Psychiatry, and Communications Specialist at Yale University School of Medicine, 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 2025, Joanna completed a new course at Stanford University "Modern Grant Writing and AI." 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 and was awarded University and College Honors, Humanities & Social Sciences Senior Honors Society. 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 as an editor for the Arts and Living section of CMU's student newspaper, The Tartan.
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Joanna lives in Pittsburgh and Connecticut. In her free time, she enjoys coaching her daughter's basketball team, playing music, gluten free cooking, yoga, and hiking.
