Joan Ganz Cooney (born
Joan Ganz; November 30, 1929) is an American television producer. She is one of the founders of the
Sesame Workshop (originally
Children's Television Workshop or CTW), the organization famous for the creation of the
children's television show Sesame Street, which was also co-created by her. Cooney grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and earned a B.A. degree in education from the
University of Arizona in 1951. After working for the
State Department in Washington, D.C. and as a journalist in Phoenix, she worked as a publicist for television and production companies in New York City. In 1961, she became interested in working for educational television, and became a documentary producer for New York's first educational TV station
WNET (Channel 13). Many of the programs she produced won local Emmys.