Joy has a PhD in Engineering (alternative fuels for small stationary engines). She joined the University of Twente in 1989. Joy’s research has focused, for more than 30 years, on the social dimension of small scale energy systems for developing countries. Gender and energy has been an important factor addressed in this research.

Joy is a founder member of ENERGIA, the international network on Gender and Sustainable Energy. From 2014 to 2019, she was the Principal Investigator in ENERGIA’s research project funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID):  Building the Evidence Base for Improving Energy Investments Effectiveness by Taking a Gendered Approach (http://energia.org/research/). From 2009 to 2013 Joy was a technical advisor on gender and energy to the World Bank AFREA Programme. She has recently been senior author for two studies on gender and energy poverty in the European Union for the FEMM committee of the European Parliament.

Joy currently leads, together with Marielle Feenstra, a Work Package (Understanding systematic inertias causing gender blind decision-making) within the IEA's UsersTCP (User-Centred Energy Systems)  Research Programme  Empowering all. Gender and Energy policy for the future. Linked to this she is part of team carrying out a study for the UK Ministry of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to identify how the UK can better develop gender responsive and inclusive climate/ energy policies and technologies.