Steven Jones joined the Aerogel Development and Production Team for the STARDUST Mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1996. He developed and produced state-of-the-art gradient density silica aerogel for the interstellar and cometary sample return collectors for STARDUST. After producing the aerogel, he also assembled the cometary and interstellar flight aerogel collectors by manually inserting the aerogel into the collector grids.

After STARDUST, he worked for the STEP (Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle) Mission; advancing their aerogel technology to the point of producing prototypical rounded trapezoidal blocks for assembly. More recently, he developed and produced the aerogel for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers where it is being used as the thermal insulation material for the Warm Electronics Boxes (WEB's). Dr. Jones was a member of the SCIM (Sample Collection for the Investigation of Mars) Mission (Phase A, 2003 Mars Scout Proposal) science team and was the proposal lead for aerogel development and production. He is currently developing aerogel for the thermoelectronics group for the Project Prometheus Program, which is part of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) Project. His current research efforts are being conducted in collaboration with the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley in developing a calorimetric aerogel for interplanetary dust capture and with a research group at USC in the preparation of a transpiration membrane for a new microscale vacuum pump.

He has a BS in Physics from Clarkson University, a BA in Chemistry from the State University of New York at Potsdam, an MS in Chemistry from Clarkson University and a Ph.D. from Clarkson University in Physical Chemistry.

Steve's wife, Jane, is currently a teacher at Crestview Elementary School in LaCanada, Ca. They have two children: Joshua, who is a Production Coordinator for CBS's "As The World Turns", and Kathryn, who is a sophomore at the State University of New York at Oswego.