The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, or USD(A&S), is the Principal Staff Assistant (PSA) and advisor to the Secretary of Defense for all matters relating to acquisition and sustainment in the Department of Defense. This includes the DoD Acquisition System; system design and development; production; logistics and distribution; installation maintenance, management, and resilience; military construction; procurement of goods and services; material readiness; maintenance; environment and energy resilience ; utilities; business management modernization; International Armaments Cooperation, Cooperative Acquisition and International Agreements, Promoting exportability of military components to allies and partners; nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs; and nuclear command, control, and communications.
The Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (SAF/AQ) is a civilian position in the Department of the Air Force that is appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. This position is established under Title 10 US Code Section 9016 and is one of five Assistant Secretary positions under the Secretary of the Air Force. The Assistant Secretary reports to the Secretary of the Air Force.
The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs, or ASD(NCB), is the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment on policy and plans for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs.
Brett P. Giroir is an American pediatrician. He was formerly the U.S. assistant secretary for health, a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and an acting Food and Drug Administration commissioner.
Andrew Charles Weber was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs, whose areas of responsibility are US nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs. Appointed by President Obama, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 18 May 2009 and served until 1 October 2014.
Heidi Shyu is an American engineer who has served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in the Biden administration since July 25, 2021. She previously served as the United States Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology ASA(ALT) from 2012 to January 30, 2016.
Ernest Jeffrey Moniz, GCIH is an American nuclear physicist and former government official. From May 2013 to January 2017, he served as the 13th United States secretary of energy in the Obama administration. Prior to this, Moniz served as associate director for science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and undersecretary of energy from 1997 to 2001 during the Clinton administration. He is currently the co-chair and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), as well as president and CEO of the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI), a nonprofit organization working on climate and energy technology issues, which he co-founded in 2017.
Bonnie Denise Jenkins is an expert on arms control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and currently serves as the under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs. During the Obama administration, she was the U.S. Department of State's coordinator for threat reduction programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.
Deborah Roche Lee James served as the 23rd Secretary of the Air Force. She is the second woman, after Sheila Widnall, to ever hold this position.
Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall is an American national security and energy leader, public servant, educator, and author currently serving as the 11th United States Homeland Security Advisor to President Joe Biden since 2021. She previously served in the Clinton and Obama Administrations and held appointments at academic institutions and think tanks.
Christine Elizabeth Wormuth is an American defense official and career civil servant who serves as the United States Secretary of the Army since 2021. Wormuth previously served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2014 to 2016.
Laura Susan Hayes Holgate is an American diplomat who has served as the United States ambassador to the United Nations International Organizations in Vienna and to the International Atomic Energy Agency since 2022 and previously from 2016 to 2017.
Barbara A. Leaf is a U.S. diplomat serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs since May 2022. As former Senior Foreign Service officer, she served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 2015 to 2018.
Kathleen Anne Holland Hicks is an American government official who has served as the United States deputy secretary of defense since 2021. She is the first Senate-confirmed woman in this role and is the highest ranking woman currently serving in the United States Department of Defense. Hicks previously served as the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy during the Obama administration. By 2020 Hicks was an American academic and national security advisor working as a senior vice president and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Jill M. Hruby is an American mechanical engineer and government official. Since July 26, 2021, Hruby has served as Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a post subject to Senate confirmation. Jill Hruby made history as the first woman to ever head a U.S. nuclear weapons lab, serving as director of Sandia National Laboratories from 2015-2017.
Frank A. Rose is an American foreign policy advisor who currently serves as the Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration at the Department of Energy. Previously he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation from December 16, 2014, to January 20, 2017. Since 2018, Rose has been the co-director of the Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.
Carlos Del Toro is a Cuban-American entrepreneur and retired United States Navy officer who serves as the 78th United States Secretary of the Navy since 2021.
Mara Elizabeth Karlin is an American foreign policy and defense advisor. In April 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Karlin to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by voice vote on August 9, 2021. Previously, she served as the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. In her role, she served as the main advisor to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on U.S. security policies related to every country in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Eurasia, and the Western Hemisphere. Her portfolio included shaping U.S. defense policy related to NATO.
