Dr. Jones was reared in South Carolina and attended public schools. His freshman year as an undeclared major was at a then branch of the University of South Carolina in his home town of Florence. This later became Francis Marion University. He transferred to Clemson University, a Jones family tradition dating back to the 1930s, as a chemistry major, having been drawn to the discipline by his freshman chemistry professor.

He was drawn to organic chemistry through the influence of his first organic chemistry professor, Dr. Gray Dinwiddie. Later he had the privilege of doing undergraduate research with Dr. Dinwiddie as well as Dr. John Jacobus who had recently joined the faculty. It was Dr. Jones' association with Dr. Jacobus that prompted his interest in pure stereochemistry and its applications to the organometallic chemistry. He received a B.S. with Honors in December, 1969.

After false starts toward graduate school at Colorado, Duke and Princeton and continuing another semester at Clemson, he found himself at The University of Texas at Austin to begin working with the late Dr. Michael J.S. Dewar, F.R.S.. His research interests gravitated toward electronic structures of small, organic molecules and modeling these structures using molecular orbital theory. These remain his passions. He received a Ph.D. in Chemistry in May, 1975.

He started his postdoctoral studies with Dr. T.C. Bruice at the University of California at Santa Barbara. In September of 1976 he accepted an appointment as an international postdoctoral fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Basel, under the direction of now retired Dr. Edgar Heilbronner, then Chairmen of the Department of Physical Chemistry. It was during this time that he developed his life-long love of the German-speaking peoples and the German language.

Dr. Jones returned to the United States to assume a position as Faculty Research Associate at The University of Texas at San Antonio in January 1979. In August 1980 he returned to The University of Texas at Austin as a Lecturer, teaching organic chemistry, chemistry for nurses and, for the first time, general chemistry. It was during this time that the groundwork for his philosophy of teaching organic chemistry began to be laid. Two years later he assumed a position as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the United States Naval Academy.

He assumed a position of Associate Professor of Chemistry at The Master's College in August 1986. He was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in August 1993. He was named Chair of the Department of Biological and Physical Sciences in August 1996. He was named Interim Chair of the Department of Mathematics in January of 1999.

Back to Index