Senior Fellow, International Security Program

Center for Strategic and International Studies

 

Kathleen Hicks is a senior fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) International Security Program, where she focuses on U.S. defense strategy and policy, Department of Defense (DOD) organizational reform, and the roles and missions of the U.S. armed forces.

 

Prior to joining CSIS, Hicks was director for policy planning in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she was responsible for overseeing the development and articulation of U.S. defense strategy and improving long-range policy and planning within DOD. During the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, she was responsible for issues relating to military roles, missions, and organizations, including the global war on terrorism, homeland defense, strategic communication, combating weapons of mass destruction, DOD and interagency institutional governance and structure, and building partnership capacity. As director for strategic planning and program integration in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, Hicks developed DOD’s first strategy for homeland defense and civil support. She also served in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy as the deputy director for resources, developing planning and programming guidance and tracking implementation through acquisition, modeling and simulation, joint capabilities, and planning, programming, budgeting, and execution, and as an assistant for strategy development during the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review.

 

A former presidential management intern and member of the Senior Executive Service, Hicks earned Office of the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Civilian Service medals in 1999 and 2004 and the Meritorious Civilian Service medal in 2006. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Maryland’s School of Public Affairs and an A.B. magna cum laude with honors from Mount Holyoke College. She is a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.