Loree D. Jones has served in top leadership positions in nonprofits, higher education and government, including as managing director, or chief operating officer, of the City of Philadelphia, and as executive director of the African Studies Association, an organization of scholars and professionals with an interest in Africa, hosted by Rutgers University. She is currently chief of staff for the chancellor of Rutgers University–Camden. She serves on the boards of Project HOME, Health Partners Plans, First Philadelphia Foundation, and the Sunday Breakfast Club, and is a former board member of a wide range of civic organizations, including the Committee of Seventy, the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, the Philadelphia Planning Commission, and the African American Museum of Philadelphia. She is an alumna — and serving for the second time as co-president — of Operation Understanding, a cross-cultural program founded in Philadelphia more than 30 years ago to build bridges of understanding between the African-American and Jewish communities. Jones holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Spelman College, where she graduated magna cum laude, and a master’s degree in history from Princeton University. She studied in Dakar, Senegal, while in college and later conducted graduate research in Senegal at Cheikh Anta Diop Université in Dakar, where she studied French and Wolof.
