Commander Holly Harrison

About

Holly Harrison, representing the US Coast Guard (USCG), is a national security affairs fellow for the academic year 2014–15 at the Hoover Institution.

A native of Vienna, Virginia, Commander Harrison graduated from the US Coast Guard Academy in 1995 with a degree in government. She has a master’s degree from Princeton University in public policy and a master’s degree from George Washington University in education. A permanent cutterman, she has spent more than half her career at sea aboard five different ships, including command of the USCGC Aquidneck during the invasion of Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and, most recently, command of USCGC Northland, a 270-foot cutter in Portsmouth, Virginia. She also served as the executive officer of the coast guard’s Maritime Law Enforcement Academy, a program reviewer in the Officer of Budget and Programs, a strategic analyst in the Strategic Management and Doctrine Directorate, and the protocol officer for the commandant of the coast guard. Chosen by President Barack Obama to serve as a 2010-11 White House Fellow, she was a senior adviser to the administrator and acting deputy chief of staff of NASA. She plans to focus her research on the Arctic and sexual assault prevention.