Dr Joanna Matthan, MD

Dr. Joanna Matthan is a Professor of Anatomy at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, a National Teaching Fellow, and a clinician whose career has taken her from the wards of Newcastle's central hospitals to senior academic leadership at an international branch campus in Malaysia.

Her background is deliberately broad. She trained as a doctor, holds a first-class equivalent MA in English, and worked at Nokia before entering medicine. That combination of scientific rigour, communication expertise, and real-world corporate experience shapes how she thinks about clinical education and patient safety.

Jo's central conviction is that anatomy is not an abstract discipline — it is the foundation on which every clinical decision rests, and teaching it well has direct consequences for patients. That conviction has driven her research, her award-winning teaching, and her advisory work across national and international organisations including the Anatomical Society, EFEM, IFAA, and the UK Clinical Reasoning Committee.

She is a Member of Court at Newcastle University and Immediate Past Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of Education at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia.