On to the next adventures… – Joanne C. Gerstner

My time as a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan is now at an end. It has been a very interesting year, with unexpected twists and turns, taking me to places where I learned something new each time. I thank everybody at the University of Michigan, KWF program director Charles Eisendrath, the hard-working Birgit Rieck (us Germans know no other way!), and everybody at Wallace house. I also want to send a heartfelt thank you to my classmates in the fellowship (hate the term fellow Fellows – can’t go there) for being such amazing people to learn from. I love you all and look forward to being part of your lives forever.

A gigantic hug of appreciation to Dr. Jeff Kutcher, Courtney, Steve, Bruno, Brandy and everybody at UM NeuroSport and the neuropsych departments. Your generosity of time and spirit let me into a whole new world. You’ve not seen the last of me. 🙂

My professors, Dr. Shirli Kopleman, Landon Little, Sherman Clark, Chris McNamara were all lovely. My friend and great advisor Dr. Andy Markovits is a font of ideas and enthusiasm. You never travel a journey alone, and I thank everybody for their help, kindness, patience and encouragement.

It’s time to move on to the next chapter, and I am excited to see where life will take me.

Namaste.

jcg

The 411…

Joanne C. Gerstner is an award-winning multimedia journalist, author, college professor and Fulbright specialist. She extensively covers, and is an expert, on sports, concussions in sports, the global business of athletics, women in media, and journalism/social media for outlets such as The New York Times, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the BBC, USA Today, ESPN and Detroit News.

She is the co-author of “Back in the Game: Why Concussion Doesn’t Have to End Your Athletic Career”, with Dr. Jeff Kutcher (Oxford University Publishing, 2016), an Amazon No. 1 hot seller on youth sports and concussions. She has also written five children’s books.

In 2019, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer appointed her to the state’s first Women in Sports Task Force. The group served three-years, making recommendations for legislation and other private sector changes in the state to assist girls and women in playing sports, and finding careers in athletics.

Gerstner is a sought-after expert, speaker and panelist, appearing at SXSW Sports, CoSIDA, the University of Michigan, Jacobs Foundation, the American Academy of Neurology’s Concussion conference, the Association for Women in Sports Media, and numerous media appearances (BBC, NPR, etc.)

She is the Brandt Fellow Sports Journalist in Residence at the School of Journalism at Michigan State University, and has won fellowships with Knight-Wallace at the University of Michigan (2012-2013), Jacobs Foundation (2015) and Steve Saler-Medill (1995).

Gerstner is the recipient of Oakland University’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2020); the Association for Women in Sports Media’s Ann Miller Award (2014); Faculty Impact Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University (2017); the inaugural MSU ComArtsSci Brandt Fellowship for Faculty Excellence (2021), and the Headliner Award from the Association for Women in Communications Detroit chapter (2017). She was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 2021.