Why Professional Development?
When Sung was a classroom teacher, she was her building's equity leader and her union's diversity representative. However, she quickly realized that Asian American communities were continually ignored in education. She decided to leave the classroom to become an equity trainer and to advocate for Asian American voices. Soon after, she was invited to her first speaking event at the Seattle Pacific Science Center among other renown speakers such as Dr. Bettina Love.
Joan Sung was born in Los Angeles, California to two Korean American immigrants and was raised in the greater Seattle area. After graduating from college, she joined the United States Air Force when the economic recession proved difficult to get a job. She was a fighter jet mechanic on the F-22A Raptor. During her military service, she fell in love with her fellow Airman and they married in 2011 and had one son. After their military service was complete, they settled down in the greater Seattle area.
A staff writer for Mochi Magazine (a magazine that amplifies Asian American women) and collegiate recovery advocate, Sung is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association, the National Association of Memoir Writers, the Willamette Writers Organization, and the National Women of Color Network. She has a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, an MA in English and is currently obtaining her Doctorate in Education. Her articles regarding AAPI voices in literature appeared on the teacher blogs BuildingBookLove and TeachNouvelle and have also been published in TinyBeans.com, the United States Air Force Arctic Warrior and the Seattle Times. She has received a United States Air Force Medal of Achievement. She is a public speaker on racial equity and is scheduled at the Seattle Pacific Science Center with Dr. Bettina Love in October 2022. Today, she is querying and working to publish her first book, Kinda Korean.