Jones is an Arthur F. Thurnau professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan (UM). He holds a Ph.D. in materials science from Vanderbilt University. Jones served as associate dean for undergraduate education in the UM College of Engineering from 1996 to 2001, and as interim chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department in 1992. From 2008 to 2013, he was the associate director of the ADVANCE Program at UM. He served as president of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) in 1999 and has served on the boards of directors of TMS and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (AIME). Jones was elected a fellow of ASM International in 2000.

He is the recipient of the Harold H. Johnson Diversity Award from UM (20070 and ASM International’s Alfred Easton White Distinguished Teacher Award (2010), the society’s highest honor for materials science teaching excellence. In 2011 he and his co-authors were awarded the Champion H. Mathewson Medal for "Microstructural Influences on Very-High-Cycle Fatigue-Crack Initiation in Ti-6246" published in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A.