Jonas graduated from Trinity College in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in political science. Soon after graduation, he moved to Maryland and began teaching at an alternative high school for students with substance abuse problems. In 1993, he received a master's degree in education at the University of Maryland at College Park with a specialization in behavioral disorders. While living in Maryland, Jonas married, started a family, and lived for nearly 10 years on the campus of a boarding school in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, where he served as the dean of residential life. He attended to boarding students at night while working as a special education teacher during the day. In 1998, after several years of teaching teens with emotional and behavioral difficulties, Jonas moved to Boston with his family to pursue a doctoral degree in psychology at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. His doctoral experience included training in community mental health, chronic mental illness, and work with adolescents and young adults. His practicum and internship experiences included training in the Massachusetts state hospital system, the Brandeis University counseling office, and the Human Relations Service (HRS) in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Jonas's dissertation investigated the experiences of white psychotherapists addressing the issue of race in psychotherapy. After receiving his doctorate in 2003, Jonas worked as a clinician at HRS and then as a school psychologist at a public elementary school in Westborough, Massachusetts. In 2008, Jonas and his family moved to Farmington, Connecticut, where he opened a private psychology practice treating a wide range of mental health and learning issues in children, adolescents, and adults. Jonas lives with his wife, Kate Windsor, and their two sons on the campus of Miss Porter's School, where Kate serves as head of school. Their son, Jack, graduated from Taft in 2012.