Jones, Deborah Kay, 1956-

Deborah Kay Jones (born 1956) is an American diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Libya. Prior to her appointment in Libya, she was the United States Ambassador to Kuwait from 2008 to 2011.

Jones graduated from Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Arizona and earned a B.A. from Brigham Young University before joining the State Department in 1982. Early career assignments included two years as country director in the Office of Arabian Peninsula and Iran Affairs, service as staff assistant to Assistant Secretary Richard Murphy of the same office, a stint as desk officer for Jordan, and service in the State Department’s Operations Center and on its Board of Examiners. Early overseas postings included assignments in Baghdad, Iraq and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

During the 1990s, Jones bounced between the Middle East and Washington, D.C., serving as consular section chief at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria, from 1990 to 1991, and as consular section chief/regional consular officer at the embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 1992 to 1994. Back in Washington, she served as acting public affairs advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs from 1994 to 1995.

After earning her M.S. in 1998, Jones was named deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where she served from 1998 to 2001, returning to Washington to serve as the director of the Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs and Iran from 2002 to 2004, and then as principal officer at the Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey from 2005 to 2007.

Jones served her first ambassadorship from April 2008 to June 2011, as ambassador to Kuwait. She was scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, from July 2011 until assuming the ambassadorship of Libya following the assassination of Chris Stevens. Her second ambassadorship lasted from June 2013 until November 2015. Her second ambassadorship became non-residential in July 2014, when the Tripoli embassy was closed and diplomatic activities were moved to the U.S. Embassy in Valletta, Malta. Returning stateside, Jones served as Deputy Commandant/International Affairs Advisor at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy of the National Defense University from October 2015 to November 2016 when she retired from the State Department.

She was married to Richard G. Olson, former Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan and United States Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, from 1990 to 2019. They have two daughters.