Jones became Chancellor of Georgia Tech on 1 August 2025. Previously he was the chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, beginning his tenure there on Sept. 26, 2016. He served as chancellor of the state’s flagship, land-grant university. Jones’ tenured faculty home was in the Department of Crop Sciences, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). He is the first African American scholar appointed as Urbana chancellor in the institution’s history. He was the chair of the Board of Directors for the Association of American Universities (AAU) and he chaired the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors. Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State College, a master’s degree in crop physiology from the University of Georgia, and a doctorate in crop physiology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America.