Lucy Jones is founder of the nonprofit Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society, supporting the application of science in the creation of more resilient communities. With a BA in Chinese language and literature from Brown University and a PhD in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was a seismologist at the U.S, Geological Survey for 33 years where she developed the methodology used for earthquake advisories in the State of California, created the Great ShakeOut drill, served as Science Advisor for Seismic Safety for the mayor of Los Angeles and wrote over 100 published papers on statistical seismology and integrated disaster scenarios.
Jones is the author of The Big Ones: How natural disasters have shaped us (and what we can do about them), published by Doubleday in 2018, and available in 7 languages. In 2020, she launched the podcast, Getting Through It, with co-host John Bwarie. She is also a musician who has performed on the viol with Los Angeles Baroque and SoCal Viols, as well as composed music on climate change such as In Nomine Terra Calens.
Her pioneering science was recognized with numerous awards, including the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal, the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Department of Interior, public service awards from the American Geophysical Union, Seismological Society of America, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Geological Society of America and the American Geosciences Institute, and the Gilbert White and Beno Gutenberg Award Lectures from the American Geophysical Union.