Alicia Smith

Alicia Smith is a nonresident fellow with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative, part of the Atlantic Council’s Technology Programs.

She brings more than a decade of experience in legislative, regulatory, and policy matters related to cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, and emerging technologies. Smith spent eight years as counsel to the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, where she covered cybersecurity and infrastructure protection issues including cyber incident response and reporting requirements, threat intelligence sharing, industrial and operational technology cybersecurity, federal network security, and public-private partnerships to strengthen cross-sector resilience.
During her tenure on the committee, Smith worked on multiple high-profile cyber incident investigations, coordinated dozens of congressional hearings, and drafted, advanced, and oversaw implementation of major federal legislation, including the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (CIRCIA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018, and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.

Most recently, Smith served as senior policy counsel at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where she led regulatory policy development and supported the implementation of CIRCIA and other regulatory initiatives. Such initiatives include CISA’s Security Requirements for Restricted Transactions under Executive Order 14117 on safeguarding Americans’ bulk sensitive personal data and US government-related data from countries of concern. In this role, Smith acted as a key liaison among CISA, the White House, and interagency partners to help develop national-level security and resilience policy.