Dr. Kathleen Hicks

Kathleen Hicks is Senior Vice President, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and Director of the International Security Program at CSIS. Her 25 year career has also included time served in the Obama administration in senior positions in defense policy and strategy, and she has become an expert in issues such as counterterrorism and homeland security, long-term futures, and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

Kathleen Hicks is Senior Vice President, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and Director of the International Security Program at CSIS, which undertakes one of the most ambitious research and policy agendas in the security field.

Previously, she served in the Obama administration as Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Forces. She led the development of the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. She also oversaw Department of Defense contingency and theater campaign planning. She has served as a Senior Fellow in the CSIS International Security Program, and as a career Civil Servant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, rising from Presidential Management Intern to the Senior Executive Service.

Dr. Hicks is concurrently the Donald Marron Scholar at the Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She serves on the Boards of Advisors for the Truman Center and SoldierStrong and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Hicks served on the National Commission on the Future of the Army and currently serves on the Commission on the National Defense Strategy.

She is the recipient of distinguished service awards from three Secretaries of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She received the 2011 DOD Senior Professional Women’s Association Excellence in Leadership Award.

She is an expert in counterterrorism and homeland security, defense industry, acquisition and innovation, defense strategy and capabilities, defense and security, geopolitics and international security, long-term futures, and weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

Dr. Hicks is a frequent writer and lecturer on geopolitics, national security, and defense matters. She is the co-editor of Asia-Pacific Rebalance 2025: Capabilities, Presence, and Partnerships and The Future of U.S. Civil Affairs Forces.

She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.P.A. from the University of Maryland, and an A.B. magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Mount Holyoke College.