Joanne Walby

Joanne Walby is Washington STEM’s Communications Manager, managing external

communications to enhance the organizational reach and showcase our statewide network

partners’ impact.

Joanne grew up in Pierce County surrounded by children: many sisters and a passel of

neighborhood kids who attended her mother’s Montessori school. During high school, Joanne

worked evenings as the janitor in her mom’s school to save money for a school trip to Spain.

This educational exchange program sparked a love of languages and discovering new places.

After getting a degree in Russian Studies from the University of Washington, she taught English at a Russian orphanage and later worked in Washington, DC for three years supporting legal reform projects in the former Soviet Union. She went on to earn a master’s degree from the American University in Cairo in Egypt where she conducted an ethnographic study of female Russian migrants into Egypt. She continued this love of writing and research as a staff writer for a business magazine in Cairo during the Arab Spring, and upon returning to the Northwest, she served as communications officer for the Refugee Women’s Alliance. When she’s not writing, she loves long walks in the city (or mountains when she gets a chance), playing with nieces and nephews, and trying anything new.