Deborah Jones is a Director of Research at CNRS (French National Scientific Research Council) at the Charles Gerhardt Institute for Molecular Chemistry and Materials, in Montpellier, France, of which she is Associate Director. She is head of the Department of Solid State and Divided Matter Chemistry, and member of the Aggregates, Interfaces and Materials for Energy team that she led during 2011-2014. Current research directions in the Materials for Energy Conversion group include the development and characterisation of new electrolyte, electrocatalyst and electrode materials for low, medium and high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells and electrolysers, and for proton ceramic fuel cells, and the validation of new materials by their integration into functional devices, as well as ageing and durability studies of proton conducting materials, membrane electrode assemblies and stacks. Other current activities include the development of catalyst materials for hydrogen generation from liquid fuels.

Deborah Jones is a Vice-President of the International Society of Electrochemistry, and was formerly chair of the Division "Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage" of this Society. She is an Editor of Electrochimica Acta. Deborah Jones was lead organiser of the Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells Symposia at the Electrochemical Society Fall Meetings 2016-2018, and co-chaired the Gordon Research Conference on Fuel Cells in 2018. Member of the Scientific Committee of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, she is coordinator of the European FCH 2 JU projects VOLUMETRIQ on the volume production and quality control of fuel cell membranes, MEAs and components for an automotive stack, GAIA on a next-generation automotive fuel cell MEA, and CRESCENDO on investigating the feasibility of using non-platinum group metal catalysts for an automotive MEA. These projects recently obtained the Best Success Story 2019 award of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking.

Deborah Jones is Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (2015) and the recipient (2016) of the Sir William Grove award of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy.