Avril Haines is a visiting fellow at All Souls College in Oxford, a Carnegie Distinguished Fellow at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Haines was the US Director of National Intelligence and a cabinet member during the Biden Administration, during which she led the US Intelligence Community and served as the President’s principal intelligence advisor. She has held senior roles across government, including Principal Deputy National Security Advisor, during which she chaired the Deputies Committee, the administration’s principal forum for formulating national security and foreign policy. She also served as deputy director of the CIA, legal adviser to the National Security Council, assistant legal adviser for Treaty Affairs, and deputy chief counsel to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations – giving her experience in intelligence, policy, and legal positions over the course of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Avril Haines received a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and served as a law clerk for Judge Danny Boggs on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Prior to law school, Avril received her bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Chicago and founded and ran a bookstore café for five years while engaged in community service in Baltimore. She has been the recipient of numerous awards for her leadership and government service, including the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Women for Peace and Security Award, the Atlantic Council’s International Distinguished Leadership Award, and the Business Executives for National Security Eisenhower Award, and serves on a number of boards, including the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board.