A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Melissa Jones is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Global Health. Prior to this new role, she served as the Director of the Office of Country Support. Her public health career spans three decades, with areas of expertise in infectious diseases, maternal and child health, nutrition, health systems, and education. Over the past 15 years, she has served in senior leadership positions in countries in Africa and Asia, overseeing a broad spectrum of health and education programs and leading large and diverse teams of development professionals. She likewise has played important roles in U.S. government interagency and multilateral coordination.
Before joining USAID, Ms. Jones worked more than a decade in disease prevention and control at the University of California, Office of the President, and at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, where she served in the AIDS Office and in the Bureau of Epidemiology and Disease Control. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington, and a Master of Public Health from San Francisco State University, with coursework at the University of California-Berkeley, School of Public Health.