J. Wayne Jones has been a member of the faculty of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering since 1978 and is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. He is also associate director of ADVANCE at the University of Michigan and director of the ADVANCE Program in the College of Engineering. ADVANCE is an NSF and University sponsored program focused on increasing the numbers of tenure-track women and under-represented minorities in the STEM disciplines.

He served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Engineering from 1996 to 2001 and he served as interim chair of MSE in 1992. He served as president of TMS (a 12,000 member materials society) in 1999 and has served on the boards of directors of TMS and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers. He was elected a fellow of ASM International (a 50,000 member materials society) in 2000. In 2007 he received the Harold H. Johnson Diversity Award from the University of Michigan. In 2008 he received the Alexander Scott Distinguished Service Award from TMS and he will receive the A. E. White Distinguished Educator Award from ASM International in 2010.

His research interests have focused on developing an understanding of structure-property relationships in advanced structural materials for automotive and aerospace applications. His work has centered on the fatigue and creep behavior of aluminum alloys, particulate strengthened aluminum matrix composites, titanium and titanium aluminides and more recently on new magnesium alloys. His research group is currently focusing on development of new instrumentation and techniques for studying the fatigue behavior of structural materials in the gigacycle regime using ultrasonic fatigue. His research is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, U.S. Department of Energy Ford Motor Company General Motors. He consults in the area of structural materials failure analysis.

He holds a M.S.Ed. (1973) and Ph.D. (1976) in Materials Science from Vanderbilt University.