As a daughter of Nigerian immigrants, she enjoys the oral history and sharing of stories but has noticed that people shy away from talking about their feelings. “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know” has unfortunately been the norm.

Joy is a data analyst at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is focused on facilitating the discussion between research, policy and community development through use of data. Her desire is to use data to evaluate and track the implementation and effectiveness of community interventions.

Joy earned her B.S. (Biomedical Engineering) at Johns Hopkins University and M.S. (Epidemiology) at Columbia University. Her thesis work examined trends in depression and mental health service use among adolescents reporting adverse childhood experiences such as abuse and parental loss. In 2015, Joy served as a youth representative for ENDA Tiers Monde (Environmental Development Action in the Third World based in Dakar, Senegal) to the United Nations in New York.