Joan Lasenby received her undergraduate BA degree and Part III qualification, in Mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. Her PhD was in Radio and Molecular Studies of the Galactic Centre at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (now the Astrophysics Group), Cavendish Laboratories, University of Cambridge. Between the BA and Part III she taught mathematics for a year as a graduate assistant in Louisiana State University (LSU). From 1987-90 she held a Junior Research Fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, which was followed by a year working for Marconi Maritime Applied Research Laboratory in the Mathematical Modelling group. From 1994 to 2000 she held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship for research into Applications of Geometric Algebra in Engineering, and was a fellow of Newnham College.

Research interests include both markered and markerless motion capture