Dr. Joy Harris has a diverse career within the Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech). Through her primary appointment as a faculty member in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), she serves as a teacher, mentor, and research advisor to undergraduate students. Within ECE, Dr. Harris focuses on lowering barriers and increasing access to all opportunities within the department. She also serves as faculty director for the Engineering for Social Innovation (ESI) Center, where she creates the space for students to use their technical skills for positive social impact.
As ESI director, she leads undergraduate service breaks to developing countries; she operates a graduate leadership and development program; and she helps her students increase the operating capacity of non-profit organizations. Dr. Harris formerly served as faculty director of the Global Leadership Living and Learning Community (LLC), where she taught a course in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and she helped her first-year LLC students to successfully integrate into the GA Tech community. Dr. Harris also served as one of the Associate Directors for the CREATE-X entrepreneurship initiative. In this capacity, she helped students increase their entrepreneurial confidence through designing their own career paths and by launching startups. Through all her roles on campus, Dr. Harris enjoys teaching and serving thousands of students throughout the academic year.
Joy’s educational background includes a bachelor's in mathematics from Spelman College and a bachelor's in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech. She earned her master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Princeton University and an MBA at Georgia Tech in 2017.