After earning her M.A. in French from New York University Denise Jefferson was awarded a scholarship to the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and began her professional career with the Pearl Lang Dance Company one year later. In 1974, she joined the faculty of The Ailey© School and was appointed its Director in 1984. She is currently the President of the National Association of Schools of Dance. She is a panelist for the Dance Program and a former Appeals Panel member of the New York State Council on the Arts. Denise Jefferson was the Vice-Chairperson of the International Association for Blacks in Dance and a former President of the Emergency Fund for Student Dancers. She has been a master teacher for the ARTS program sponsored by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Ms. Jefferson serves as an evaluator of professional dance academies and college and university dance departments in the U.S. and abroad and an adjudicator of international dance competitions. She has taught at New York Universities, as the Tisch School of the Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, London Contemporary Dance School, a. o. In 2001 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Wheaton College.