Dr. Kathleen Hicks is senior vice president, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and the Director of the International Security Program at CSIS.

She previously served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Forces, assisting in overseeing all aspects of US defense relations and policy development and leading the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance process and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. From 2006 to early 2009, Dr. Hicks served as a senior fellow at CSIS, leading a variety of research projects in the national security field. She was previously a career civil servant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, rising from Presidential Management Intern to the Senior Executive Service. Dr. Hicks holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.A. from the University of Maryland’s School of Public Affairs, and an A.B. magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Mount Holyoke College.