Denise Jones Gregory has been officially appointed as the fourteenth president of Jackson State University in Mississippi. She has led the HBCU on an interim basis since May 2025.
According to the most recent data from the Department of Education, Jackson State University enrolls more than 4,600 undergraduates, 94 percent of whom are Black. The university also has a graduate population of nearly 1,700 students.
Prior to her interim appointment, Dr. Gregory served as Jackson State’s provost and vice president of academic affairs for one year. Before joining the Jackson State administration, she was a professor of chemistry and associate provost for student success at Samford University in Alabama. Dr. Gregory’s career in academia began as a faculty member in chemistry at historically Black Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Dr. Gregory is an alumna of Jackson State University, where she graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology and completed additional training with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
