Jennifer Wood is the Chief of Staff and Chief Legal Counsel of the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Her undergraduate degree is in International Relations from Brown University and she worked in international student recruitment and admission at Brown in the 1980s prior to attending law school at Northeastern University. As an attorney she has worked primarily in the field of education law at Rhode Island Legal Services, in private practice and, since 1998, at the Department of Education. She has continued to pursue a lifelong interest in global education in her work at the Department of Education and has represented the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education on the state team to the States Institute on International Education in the Schools sponsored by the Asia Society and other national education policy organizations. Jennifer is currently a member of the Rhode Island Working Group on China, an ad hoc group of educators, business people and policy makers focused on stimulating the teaching of Chinese language and culture in Rhode Island educational institutions at all levels.