A. Elizabeth Jones

Ambassador A. Elizabeth Jones has extensive international experience in Europe, Eurasia, South Asia and the Middle East. She spent 35 years in the United States Foreign Service, where she achieved the highest rank of career ambassador.

As assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia for the U.S. Department of State, Ambassador Beth Jones designed U.S. policies for NATO and European Union countries, Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia.  She supervised 54 U.S. ambassadors and their embassies.

Beth held numerous other high-ranking Foreign Service positions, including ambassador to Kazakhstan; principal deputy assistant secretary for the Near East bureau; senior advisor for Caspian energy diplomacy; executive assistant to Secretary of State Warren Christopher; deputy chief of mission, United States Embassy, Bonn, Germany; and deputy chief of mission, United States Embassy, Islamabad, Pakistan. Her other overseas postings include Kabul, Cairo, Amman, Baghdad and West Berlin.

She has returned to the Foreign Service several times since her 2005 retirement, as Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan,  Acting Assistant Secretary for the Near East Bureau and Coordinator for the Afghan Relocation effort after the fall of Kabul.  In 2022 and 2023 Ambassador Jones led Embassy New Delhi and later Embassy Cairo, both times as Charge’ d’Affaires.

Ambassador Jones served on several nonprofit boards, including the American Academy of Diplomacy, the Atlantic Council, IREX, the Eurasia Foundation for Central Asia, and the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.

Ambassador Jones was born in Germany in 1948, while her parents were assigned there with the U.S. Foreign Service. She attended local high schools in Moscow, U.S.S.R., and West Berlin, Germany, while her parents were on diplomatic assignments there.  She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1970 with a B.A. in history and in 1986 earned a Masters degree in international relations from Boston University’s overseas program in Berlin.  She is married to Don Ruschman and has two adult children.