Joanna is the Director of International Grant Initiatives at EdPlus, where she plans, organizes and directs the daily operations of Baobab, The Mastercard Foundation’s digital alumni platform, to ensure ongoing efficient and effective delivery of services in accordance with established priorities, strategies, and goals.
She was formerly the Associate Director of the Education for Humanity initiative at Arizona State University, which leverages a blended learning approach to provide refugee learners and other displacement-affected community members access to higher education pathways in the Middle East, East Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Joanna assisted in shaping the initiative’s overall global strategy and drives the utilization of learner performance and qualitative data to improve course offerings and the experience of learners, facilitators, and implementing partners. Through this work, Joanna cultivated relationships and forged mutually beneficial partnerships to strengthen impact. She also supported recently resettled refugees in the metro Phoenix area with English language training, career navigation support, and industry-specific training through the Arizona Refugee Career Pathways Program. Joanna has served on the leadership team of the Connected Learning in Crisis Consortium (CLCC), Open Society University Network's Refugee Higher Education Access Program (RhEAP) and was honored by the Qatar Foundation as a 2021 WISE Emerging Leader.