Joana is Portuguese. She was born and raised in Coimbra in Central Portugal and did her undergraduate studies in Sociology at the University of Coimbra. She then moved to Lisbon and did her Masters in Communication, Culture and Information Technologies (Sociology) at ISCTE – Lisbon University Institute (Higher Institute of Business and Labour Sciences), Portugal. In 2006 while doing her PhD in Sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, she decided to move to the UK and to transfer her PhD to Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL). It was during this time that Joana began to work in two IB World Schools supporting students doing IB Portuguese, including students doing SSST Literature A (SL) as well as supporting Portuguese mother tongue for children as young as age 4/5, and Portuguese GCSEs, and she has been involved in mentoring an IB Extended Essay. As part of this work, over the years she has attended various IB training sessions. During the academic year 2013/14 she was a Mildred Blaxter postdoctoral fellow from the British Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness.
Joana is also a member of the Scientific Editorial Board of the Brazilian Journal Interface: Comunicação, Saúde, Educação (Interface: Communication, Health and Education) (Associate Editor) since November 2015 and often serves as an expert reviewer for many scientific academic journals within social sciences such as: Social Science & Medicine, Sociology of Health & Illness, Homeopathy, Health Promotion International, Globalisation & Health, Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, Health Sociology Review. She frequently presents at professional conferences and has published various research articles in academic journals and chapters in books in the areas of sociology of health and sociology of the professions.
Joana now lives in the UK but frequently commutes between England and Portugal. As a consummate and accomplished academic, Joana is wonderful role model for our ILLTC students of Portuguese A.