Joanne is a first generation Chinese-American born and raised in the historic and scenic Hudson River Valley in Upstate New York. Her parents are originally from Guangzhou and Hong Kong. She is fluent in her family's Chinese dialect, Tsoi-sanese, and can understand Cantonese. Growing up as only one of two Chinese families in a predominantly Caucasian small town was a real eye opener. After school, on weekends and during summer vacations she could be found working at her family's restaurant "Louie's Tea Garden" which was sold in 1986.

After graduating from SUNY - New Paltz armed with a degree in Communications and some film, television and video internship experience in New York City, she had some false starts in life - including acting as Nursing Assistant for New York State and teaching English as a Foreign Language in South Korea - before finally finding her niche in the IT field in Manhattan.

Joanne is an IT generalist with a specialty in database administration and website design. She has worked on the staff of many diverse non-profit organizations as their database guru and served as a volunteer at still others. Realizing non-profit work was not the "right" place for her, she was lucky enough to land a position with an IPG advertising agency (Initiative) as a Data Analyst where she was finally able to indulge her penchant for traveling. During her tenure there, she visited Myamnar (Burma), Cambodia, Thailand, Morocco, Costa Rica, China and Hong Kong. The latter was a pilgrimage to visit her family's roots for the first time in the summer of 2006. She has since returned for a second trip in the Summer of 2009.

While in China, immersed in Mandarin Chinese, Joanne found that the Mandarin Chinese classes she had taken during college and what she had learned from Chinese friends along the way came in real handy. Surprisingly enough, she was able to get around, communicated well enough to be understood and blended right in! Her recent wanderlust has taken her to California, France, Italy and Singapore. She is looking forward to meeting more ORIENTED members and organizers through her travels.

Currently Joanne is working for a subsidiary of WPP, a global advertising agency, as a Senior Programmer for the Analytics and Insights department on an assortment of accounts, including AT&T and Citibank. People have been known to say that she is in the business of "relationship-building", and ORIENTED is a great platform for such an activity. Looking for her? You will always know where to find her on the last Thursday of every month!