Expert Bio

Alice Hill is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her work at CFR focuses on the risks, consequences, and responses associated with climate change.

Hill previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff where she led the development of national policy to build resilience to catastrophic risks, including climate change and biological threats.

Her coauthored book, Building a Resilient Tomorrow, was published in 2019. In 2020, Yale University and the Op-Ed Project awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis. Hill’s book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, was published in 2021. Hill is also a contributing author to the book, Standing Up for a Sustainable World: Voices of Change, edited by Claude Henry, Johan Rockström, and Nicholas Stern.

Hill's writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Axios, CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Nature, and Lawfare, among others. She has made numerous TV and radio appearances as a climate expert, including on CBS, NBC, NPR, MSNBC, PBS Newshour, and the Washington Post.

In 2009, Hill served as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in which she led the formulation of DHS's first-ever climate adaptation plan and the development of strategic plans regarding catastrophic biological and chemical threats, including pandemics. While at the Department of Homeland Security, Hill founded and led the internationally recognized anti-human trafficking initiative, the Blue Campaign.

Hill served as a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019, during which time she was awarded the National Institute of Building Sciences’ President’s Award and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center Writing Fellowship. In 2016, Harvard University’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative also named her Meta-Leader of the Year.

Earlier in her career, Hill served as supervising judge on both the superior and municipal courts in Los Angeles and as chief of the white-collar crime prosecution unit in the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s office. The Department of Justice awarded her its highest accolade, the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement. 

Hill earned her bachelor’s degree in history and economics with distinction from Stanford University and her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

affiliations

  • Environmental Defense Fund, board member
  • Munich Re America and related U.S. subsidiaries of the Munich Re Group, board member
  • University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, board member
  • California Insurance Commission, California insurance working group on climate change, chair
  • Climate Crisis Advisory Group, member
  • Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education, advisory council member
  • Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change, advisory council member
  • One Concern, advisory board member

  • Project Climate and Security Action (CASA), advisory group, co-chair

  • Red Cross Disaster Cycle Services Mission Adaptation Advisory Council, member

Media Inquiries

For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
Clear All
Regions
Topics
Type

Top Stories on CFR

India

With India's development continuing to gain steam, one of the biggest challenges will be to avoid the mistake that others have made when they failed to recognize their newly acquired global systemic influence and adapt accordingly. Both China and Big Tech show that it is never too early to start managing one's own rise.

United States

Atmospheric rivers are gaining in intensity across California and the western United States. Communities need to adapt to the havoc wrought by this weather phenomenon.

United States

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential contenders are saying about foreign policy. This Week: Much like talk of Mark Twain’s death, claims that Americans are turning their back on the world are greatly exaggerated.