Dr. José-Marie Griffiths was born in Isleworth, Middlesex, England, on March 31, 1952, to two educators. She earned her BA and doctoral degrees in Physics, Information Science and Computer Science, and Statistics from the University College London in 1978 (Dr. Griffiths was later awarded an honory doctoral degree in 2016).

Dr. Griffiths immigrated to the United States and began her role as Vice President for King Research, Inc. Dr. Griffiths later entered into her education career and held several positions: Vice-Chancellor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (1994-1996), Chief Information Officer at the University of Michigan (1996-2001), Dean of the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at North Chapel Hill (2004-2010), and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bryant University (2010-2015). She became the President of Dakota State University in 2015.

Dr. Griffiths has served on multiple scientific boards and organizations, and she has been awarded three presidential appointments: the U.S. President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and the National Science Board. She has attended White House summits on STEM and Cyber Workforce and Education, and has debated with industry leaders Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Eric Schmidt. Dr. Griffiths served on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence; has carried out projects with major corporations such as IBM; and has written and co-authored books and technical reports as well as traveled the world to speak at conferences and summits. In 2022, Dr. Griffiths was named one of the Top 50 Most Influential Women in Artificial Intelligence by the InspiredMinds community.