Mary Thompson-Jones, Ed.D

Mary Thompson-Jones is a professor of National Security Affairs and holds the chair for Woman in National Security and Diplomacy. As a member of the Newport Arctic Scholars Initiative she has presented on Arctic security panels in Denmark, Norway, and Greenland, and teaches an elective course, “Imagining the Arctic.”

She is the author of America in the Arctic, Foreign Policy and Competition in the Melting North (Columbia University Press 2025), and To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect (Norton 2016).

She is a former Foreign Service Officer who served in diplomatic posts in the Czech Republic, Canada, Guatemala, Spain, and Washington, D.C. She retired with the rank of Minister-Counselor.

Mary also teaches diplomacy at the University of Rhode Island. She holds a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania, a master of arts in law and diplomacy from Tufts University’s Fletcher School, and undergraduate degrees in journalism and political science from California State University.

She lives in Tiverton, Rhode Island, with her husband, Robert Sturdy.