Maria Shelby Jones, Ph.D.

Dr. Maria Shelby Jones serves as Sr. Consultant, Equitable Research & Evaluation with Choice Filled Lives Network. She graduated magna cum laude with her B.A. in psychology from Spelman College & her Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology from Emory University. As a postdoctoral research fellow, Dr. Jones managed a laboratory of 5 undergraduate research assistants and conducted advanced statistical analyses for research collaborations in contributing to the manuscripts at the Gender Race & Cultural Empowerment Lab at Spelman College. Dr. Jones is also the founder and CEO of Gradlife Chic, LLC, which offers data analytics and research design services.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, her research program explores the behavioral and neural mechanisms of implicit gendered racial bias and its effects on intersectional identity development and persistence in STEM across development. Dr. Jones also studies the effects of experiencing discrimination at the intersection of multiple historically disadvantaged social identities (e.g., race, class, disability, etc.) and its implications for overall cognitive development, academic achievement, and psychological well-being in children and adults. 

Dr. Jones served as Partner, Research Infrastructure and Operations at Character Lab for two years. Character Lab is a nonprofit organization that aims to advance scientific insights to help kids thrive. In this role, she facilitated the work of a large interdisciplinary consortium of external research partners to execute and support character development research. Primarily, this included coordinating the programming, monitoring, and troubleshooting of Character Lab’s digital research platform, with over 100,000 students participating in studies across the country. In addition, the Research Partnerships Team managed the data collection and cleaning of this large dataset that gets delivered to researchers each school year.

In service to the academic and social justice communities, Dr. Jones serves on the Executive Board of Dillard University’s Center for Racial Justice, where she serves on the Education & Juvenile Justice Committees. Additionally, Dr. Jones is a founding member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Walden Wise, a non-profit organization cultivating a culture of emotional health for all children.  As a Cognitive and Developmental Psychologist, Dr. Jones has made it her goal to dispel stereotypes about what a scientist looks like through her various mentoring programs. Through curriculum development and science communication, Dr. Jones empowers K-12 & undergraduate students of color to stop fearing math and science to increase accessibility and inclusivity within STEM.