Joanna 'Jojo' Emerson

Jojo is a culinary educator with a background in professional baking, team building, and community health. She studied Community Health and Sociology at Tufts University, going on to earn her Master’s in Public Health and Epidemiology. After years of conducting public health research at Tufts Medical Center, Jojo took a hard pivot to pursue her passion and became a professional baker. She most recently served as Head Baker at Somerville’s Forge Baking Company, where she taught community baking classes and developed her love of culinary education.
Jojo most enjoys applying the training skills honed in professional kitchens to community programming. She believes in collective cooking as a means of community building and cultural exchange, and strives to make the teaching kitchen a rich community space that helps empower those who use it. In her free time, you can find Jojo traversing the trails of Massachusetts as she trains for her next marathon.