[1] Clay-Jolles was born in 1881 in Assen, Netherlands to Eva Dina Halbertsma and Maurits Aernout Diedrick Jolles.
She was the first and only girl to attend the local secondary school, passing both the alpha and beta series exams at the end of her studies there.
In recognition of her expertise as a scientist and scholar, she was hired to edit a series of lectures by Nobel laureate Hendrik Antoon Lorentz in 1921.
[4] Clay-Jones and her husband published an article on these findings in the Proceedings of the Amsterdam Academy of Sciences[5] entitled "Measurements of Ultraviolet Sunlight in the Tropics.
"[6] After some dispute over the veracity of these findings, Clay-Jolles defended their work in a discussion published in the East Indian scientific journal, Natuurkundig Tijdshrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië.