SSP alum Kathleen Hicks was sworn in as the 35^th U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense by U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, on Feb. 9, 2021.

Hicks (PhD 2010), is the first female to hold the position of second-in-command at the Pentagon. Prior to being sworn in, she served as the Team Lead for the Biden/Harris transition agency review, and was the Senior VP and Director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading non-partisan U.S. thinktank.

To read more about Hicks, please read this article by the U.S. Department of Defense, and this article on MIT alumni in public service from MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.