Suzanne Spaulding serves as a member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and is also senior adviser for homeland security and director of the Defending Democratic Institutions project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Previously, Ms. Spaulding served as undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where she led the National Protection and Programs Directorate, which has transitioned to become the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In that role, she managed a $3 billion budget and a workforce of 18,000 charged with strengthening cybersecurity and protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure. Ms. Spaulding has worked in the executive branch in Republican and Democratic administrations and on both sides of the aisle in Congress. She was general counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and minority staff director for the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She also spent six years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she was assistant general counsel and the legal adviser to the director’s Nonproliferation Center. Following the attacks of 9/11, Ms. Spaulding worked with key critical infrastructure sectors as they reviewed their security posture and advised the CEOs of the Business Roundtable.

Ms. Spaulding earned both her law degree and undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia.