JUDITH JONES

JONES--Judith E. Judith E. Jones. Professor Emerita of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, passed away at the age of 83 on March 13 at her home in Wilton, CT. Born in Bronx, NY to Benjamin and Muriel Burns, Judith went on to earn a BA from Hunter College and an MSc from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. She married Madison S. Jones III of New York City in 1956. Madison was selected to run JFK's new Peace Corp office in Tunisia and later in Morocco. During this time, Judith decided the diplomatic dinner party circuit didn't go far enough, and involved the wives of diplomats, volunteers, and local citizens to create a cohesive network to learn about each other's languages, customs and culture. Upon returning to Washington, DC, she volunteered at the Mayor's City Hall Complaints Center which was established to serve as a liaison between citizens and local government. Judith became a key player in Preterm, a pioneering Washington, DC clinic that provided legal abortions, family planning services, and counseling in before the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Judith designed the pre-post- procedure protocols that included counselors throughout and she established a system for patient feedback. Judith joined the faculty of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in 1975. She served as Deputy Director of the Center for Population and Family Health where she developed and managed a broad range of pioneering preventive health programs to provide access to contraception and other needed health care for underserved low-income women, adolescents, and young children. She was responsible for establishing several of the School's family planning and reproductive health service programs in Washington Heights, including innovative school-based clinics, the Young Adult Clinic, and the Young Men's Health Clinic. Judith was a larger-than-life character with a long list of creative accomplishments. From 1992-2005, Judith was Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Program Office for Free to Grow: Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-free Communities, a program designed to support efforts by Head Start agencies and their community partners to strengthen the families and neighborhood environments of high-risk preschool children living in low-income communities. She served as Senior Advisor to Carnegie Corporation for the Starting Points State and Community Partnerships for Young Children grants program. With major support from Carnegie Corporation of New York and The Ford Foundation, she became founding director of the National Center for Children in Poverty established in 1989 at Columbia University as a policy and research organization focused on developing strategies to help prevent and alleviate childhood poverty. She was an expert witness before Congressional committees, and keynote speaker at numerous professional and foundation meetings. She served on numerous boards and advisory committees focused on improving the wellbeing of families and young children, including the Power to Decide (formerly The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy), Hasbro Children's Foundation, Center for Health and Social Policy, Outside the Dream Foundation, New York Academy of Medicine's Pathways to Collaboration, and the Enterprise Foundation's New York City Advisory Board, and the editorial board of Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. She also served as a consultant to private and governmental organizations in the United States, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and in Europe. Judith received the Hunter College Hall of Fame award in 1989 and the Alumni Award of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in 1994. Judith is predeceased by her beloved daughter, Hilary, and her husband Madison.