Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity

During much of her career, Jones has actively worked to increase the percentage of women and underrepresented minorities who work in astronomy and astrophysics.
 

According to the American Institute of Physics (https://www.aip.org/statistics/reports/women-physics-and-astronomy-2019), prior to 1990, women obtained only 20% (or fewer) of Ph.D.'s awarded in physical sciences, growing to 30% as of 2016. Additionally, as recently reported in Nature (2020 586, 491), although one third of the U.S. population identifies as Black, Latin American, or Native American, only 9% of science and engineering doctorate degrees have been awarded to these groups.
 

Jones's most sustained effort to increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities in astronomy has been through her initiation of the NSF-funded SAO Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. As the first Director and PI (1994-2016), and currently as a co-PI of the SAO REU program, Jones has strongly encouraged women and under-represented minorities to pursue careers in astronomy. Each summer approximately ten students spend 10 weeks at CfA (2020 was "virtual"), carrying out astronomy related research projects. Each intern also attends the winter AAS meeting, where they present a poster based on their summer research. In addition to engaging them in research, Jones, along with the other SAO REU Directors, Jonathan McDowell, Marie Machacek and Matt Ashby, provides information about graduate schools and graduate student fellowships. From 2014 to 2019, Jones and Machacek presented a workshop for the interns on the "Responsible Conduct of Research: Case Studies."
 

Overall, of the 284 interns who have participated in the SAO REU, 153 were women – 54% of the total. 48 of the REU interns (17%) were members of under-represented minorities. Increasing the participation of women and under-represented minorities in astronomy has been and still remains a primary goal of the SAO REU program.
 

To expand the science curriculum for students in elementary schools, particularly public schools where budgets are generally tight, in the 1990's, Jones and Eric Mandal received a NASA grant that supported a collaboration between SAO/CfA and teachers at local elementary schools to develop an inquiry-based science curriculum, called "Everyday Classroom Tools." This curriculum is freely available for use in other schools and can be found at https://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/.
 

Jones has also worked outside CfA to encourage under-represented minorities. As one example, in June and July 2005, Jones presented a series of four lectures at the International advanced school for senior graduate students and postdoctoral fellows organized by the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica of Puebla- Mexico and held in Tonanzintla - Puebla, Mexico. The scientific topic was "A Pan-Chromatic View of Clusters of Galaxies and Large Scale Structure." This advanced school was part of the annual international Guillermo Haro Program, which promotes research through the organization of lecture series, workshops, and conferences. In addition to her lectures, Jones met with students and encouraged them to pursue careers in astronomy.

For many years, Jones also has participated in the AAS Shapley visiting lectureship program. These visits to colleges include a public lecture, as well as a department colloquium and often an outreach activity. In 2019, she visited Georgia College and State University. In addition to giving scientific lectures, she spoke with and used the Hubble Deep Field activity with local girl scout troops to introduce them to astronomical observations. Through this HST activity, students can actually measure the number of observable galaxies in the Universe. As part of this visit, Jones also spent one day at the Swift School for Dyslexia and Language Learning Differences in Roswell, Georgia, where Jones again very successfully used the Hubble Deep Field activity with each sixth grade science class.

In addition to the AAS Shapley program, Jones has given a number of public lectures. Recently, In October 2019, in addition to serving on the Governing Board of the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Waterloo, Jones gave a public lecture "Black Holes and Dark Matter -- Exploring the Invisible Universe with X-ray observations." Also, in March 2020, Jones gave a public lecture, titled "The Dark Side of the Universe - Galaxy Clusters, Dark Matter and Supermassive Black Holes," to a standing-room-only audience in Bento Gonclaves, Brazil, as part of the IAU Symposium 359: Galaxy Evolution and Feedback Across Different Environments. As she spoke, her talk was translated into Portugese. Following an extended question and answer period after the talk, Jones spoke individually (and took "selfies"!) with more than fifty students who had been in the audience. In 2022, Jones was the featured speaker for a public  Astronomy Day lecture "Exploring the Invisible and Hot Universe, from Scales of Supermassive Black Holes to Clusters of Galaxies," as well as  presenting the physics department colloquium, for the University South Dakota Astronomy Day.

Jones served on the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Board of Directors 2012 - 2018. The ASP was founded in 1889 and is an international scientific and educational organization that works to increase the understanding and appreciation of astronomy by providing educators, outreach coordinators and amateur astronomers with astronomy focused activities, workshops, webinars and toolkits so they can share their passion for astronomy and promote science literacy. The ASP also provides training for astronomy clubs that share their time and telescopes to engage the public through outreach activities. ASP is also working with NASA to create new astronomy badges for Girl Scouts and to connect adult Girl Scout volunteers to NASA's Night Sky Network.

In 2017, Jones was a member of the US delegation to the IUPAP (International Union of Pure and Applied Physics) International Conference on Women in Physics held at the University of Birmingham (UK). This conference brought together women physicists from around the world. Jones was invited and agreed to be a Co-I on the NSF proposal "Diversifying the US Physics Community through Application of Best Practices" which proposes to continue the discussions begun at the 2017 Women in Physics conference through a future international conference on women in physics.