Katie Tobin

Katie Tobin is a homeland security expert with over twenty years of experience in the industry. She currently serves as a senior advisor at WestExec Advisors LLC and is a nonresident scholar with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace' American Statecraft Program. She also teaches part time at University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and is a frequent public speaker and press contributor. From 2021 to 2024, Katie served as deputy assistant to the President and senior director for Transborder in the White House National Security Council. In this role, she led US policy on a wide-range of cross-border security matters, including aviation and maritime security, border security, global immigration and visa policy, and security vetting.

During her tenure in the White House, Katie spearheaded the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, a migration pact adopted by 21 countries in the Western Hemisphere in June 2022. In the aviation sphere, she drove the launch of the Domestic Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) National Action Plan in April 2022. For her contribution to maritime security, the US Coast Guard awarded her with the Distinguished Public Service Award in 2024. She is also the recipient of the Department of Homeland Security’s 2024 Distinguished Service Medal. Before joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Katie served for nearly a decade with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and has also held positions at DHS and a private law firm in Chicago.

Katie earned her and her BA from Villanova University and JD from The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law.