Keynote Speaker

Dr.Loretta Jones is the 2025 Arkansas Women in STEM Conference Keynote speaker. Dr. Jones is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Northern Colorado. She earned a BS in chemistry at Loyola University in Chicago. After marrying and working at Argonne National Laboratory for three years, she earned a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago. She helped to start a small electronics business and had a child. She returned to graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, earning a Ph.D. in chemistry and a D.A. in chemistry education.

Dr. Jones taught in and helped to manage the general chemistry program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 13 years. For a year she worked for IBM as a Consulting Scholar. In 1992, she took a tenure-track position at the University of Northern Colorado, where she taught chemistry and science education for 16 years. She chaired the Chemical Education Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), chaired the 2001 Gordon Research Conference on Visualization in Science and Education, and served on the editorial board of Chemistry Education Research and Practice. Her chemical education research focused on helping students to understand the molecular basis of chemistry through visualization. In 2012, Dr. Jones received the ACS Award for Achievement in Research in the Teaching and Learning of Chemistry.

Dr. Jones is the co-author of a general chemistry textbook and an award-winning interactive video courseware. She now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she is still working on textbook revisions, but also does volunteer work and is studying art and dance.

The Arkansas Women in STEM conference is proud to have Dr. Jones as our Keynote Speaker!