[1][2] Joella Hardeman was born in Los Angeles on January 8, 1929, and began studying music at age eight.
[1] In 1971, Gipson earned a doctorate in mathematics education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,[5][6] with the dissertation Teaching probability in the elementary school: an exploratory study, supervised by John A. Easley Jr.
[1] Gipson was the coauthor of Consumer and Career Mathematics (with L. Carey Bolster and H. Douglas Woodburn, Scott & Foresman, 1978)[9] and Black Mathematicians and Their Works (with Virginia Newell, L. Waldo Rich, and Beauregard Stubblefield, Dorrance & Company, 1980).
[2][5] In 1993, she won the Wayne State University Alumni Faculty Service Award "for her outstanding work on behalf of women, minorities, and the disabled in educational leadership programs".
[11] In 2010, the Wayne State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies gave her their lifetime achievement award.