Diane Jones began serving as assistant secretary for postsecondary education in August 2007, but announced her resignation only nine months later. A Baltimore native, Jones earned a B.S. degree in biology from Salisbury State University on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In 1988 she earned her M.S. degree in applied molecular biology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). The same year, she was hired by the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), where she ran the Upper Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Assessment Center for two years. Jones served on the CCBC faculty for ten years, (first as an adjunct, then assistant and associate professor) where she taught courses in microbiology, environmental sciences, anatomy and genetics. From 1998 to 2000, while teaching at CCBC, she also completed doctoral course work in molecular and cellular biology at UMBC.

 

In 2000, Jones became a program officer for the National Science Foundation, where she participated in the administration of three programs: Advanced Technological Education; Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement; and Computer Science, Engineering and Mathematics Scholarships.

 

The following year, Jones was offered a professional staff job on the Research Subcommittee of the House Science Committee by Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.). For two years, she worked on science, cyber security, construction safety and education-related bills that became law and on the engineering investigation of the World Trade Center collapse.

 

From 2003 to 2005, Jones ran Princeton University's Washington, D.C., office of government affairs, and then took a position as a deputy to the associate director for science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She joined the Department of Education in May 2007 as deputy assistant secretary for postsecondary education. President Bush nominated her in the same month to be assistant secretary for postsecondary education, and she was confirmed by the Senate in August of the same year.

 

Rewriting History at the Department of Education (by Stephen Burd, Higher Ed Watch)