“Adventurous strategist, cross-cultural explorer, and human and animal welfare champion.”
“Adventurous strategist, cross-cultural explorer, and human and animal welfare champion.”
Joanne Lee is Collaborative Learning Director at Healthy Places by Design, and part of the organization’s leadership team. She provides strategic guidance for the organization’s Collaborative Learning and Networking services, which are designed to share expertise and resources, develop new partnerships, and spark generative thinking. Joanne engages directly with funders and leaders in the field to build capacity and develop initiatives that accelerate and sustain community-led action to ensure health and wellbeing for all. Joanne also provides strategic coaching and technical assistance to community-based partnerships across all phases of planning, implementation, and sustainability. She joined the Healthy Places by Design team in 2005, and has been involved in several of the organization’s major initiatives across national, state, and local levels.
Joanne has professional experience and personal passion around equity, cultural diversity, authentic community engagement, sustainability, and community-based policy and systems approaches. She has lived and worked in diverse settings across the country. Joanne previously served as Program Director for the Nutrition Division of the Pitt County Health Department in eastern North Carolina. She was also Lead Research Dietitian for the Nutrition Support Shared Resource Unit of the Cancer Research Center of Hawai’i, and served in lead roles on national and international research studies, including NIH-funded investigations. Joanne completed her MPH and BS degrees at the University of Hawai’i. She is a Registered Dietitian and holds a Certificate of Advanced Clinical Education in Child and Adolescent Obesity from the University of California, San Francisco.
Joanne grew up in Hawai’i and currently resides in rural eastern North Carolina. She supports local parks and walkability initiatives, and is a regular patron of farmers’ markets in her community. Joanne has a special love of dogs, owning dogs rescued from shelters and volunteering with animal welfare groups. She has also volunteered at local senior facilities with her certified therapy dogs and as a trainer for the New Leash on Life program at a local correctional institution.
When I first moved from Hawai’i to North Carolina, I left a community in which I was in the majority racial group to one where Asians make up less than one percent of the population. In many ways, it was the first time I had experienced what it felt like to be a minority in this country. Experiencing stereotyping and racism firsthand not only opened my eyes about the perceptions of others, but also prompted me to examine and change my own biases and perceptions. I also became more curious about how we all experience our own race and ethnicity in relation to others.
Stark environmental differences also challenged me when I moved. Normal childhood days in Hawai’i involved eating fresh mangoes, bananas, and papayas picked from backyard trees, walking to school, and playing at the beach with friends. Once I began living in a new community with fewer readily accessible amenities, I had to seek different ways to incorporate healthy eating and active living into my routine.
By deepening engagement in my new community, over time I have discovered the ingenuity and resourcefulness of people who have created healthy supports and their steadfast commitment to incremental changes over time. I watched a strip of sidewalk eventually connect to community destinations. A farmer’s road stand has grown into a neighborhood farmers’ market. Unused county-owned property has been transformed into a gathering place and resource, and in 2017 was recognized as one of five Great Public Spaces in the country by the American Planning Association. Whether in my own community or as part of the Healthy Places by Design team, I am inspired every day by community members and the changes they are leading across the country.