Joanna Zhao Zhen-Ping, Professor, L.Ac., Dipl. Ac. (N.C.C.A.), M.T.C.M. (China)

Academic Dean and Clinic Director

Joanna Zhao, Academic Dean of Five Branches Institute, has been Director of Five Branches' TCM Clinic since she founded it in 1985.

Her commitment to TCM began early, when as a youngster in China she became interested in the work of her uncle, a TCM doctor, which led to her 25 years in TCM.

Joanna graduated from the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the People's Republic of China, where she trained in both Western medicine and TCM.

After graduation, she studied with noted medical doctors and acupuncturists Xiuyan Lu and Yuan Fang. Since then, she has spent more than a quarter century teaching and practicing TCM in China and the United States, working with a local oncologist and developing specialties in cancer, immune diseases, mental and emotional disorders, and infertility.

She lectured at Five Branches' International Symposiums on Women's TCM (1996) and Pediatric TCM (1997) and has been a guest speaker at the University of California-Santa Cruz and at a Western medical hospital.

She has led study tours to China since 1992, where Five Branches' graduates study in Shanghai's Shuguang Hospital and Zhejiang TCM College.

Ms. Zhao is an accomplished musician, integrating Eastern and Western styles of music, as well as medicine.

Like her teacher and great-grandfather, she is also an excellent Chinese calligrapher. Joanna teaches in the Departments of TCM Acupuncture, TCM Clinical Medicine, Clinical Training and TCM Complementary Studies.