Alan D. Cohn is an American lawyer and former government official who served as Assistant Secretary for Strategy, Planning, Analysis & Risk in the

United States Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the Interior minister, interior, Home Secretary ...

Office of Policy from 2012 to 2015.

Biography

Cohn received his A.B. in history and political science from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1993 and a J.D. degree from

Georgetown University Law Center Georgetown University Law Center is the Law school in the United States, law school of Georgetown University, a Private university, private research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law ...

in 1997. From 1990 to 1994, he was an

emergency medical technician An emergency medical technician (often, more simply, EMT) is a medical professional that provides emergency medical services. EMTs are most commonly found serving on ambulances and in fire departments in the US and Canada, as full-time and som ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, working for Columbia Area Volunteer Ambulance, a student-operated volunteer ambulance corps that provides pre-hospital emergency medical care to residents in Columbia-owned buildings on its

Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningsi ...

campus. He was also a

FEMA The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

Disaster Assistance Employee from 1995 to 2006, and a Planning Officer on the

Fairfax County Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. With a population of 1,150,309 as of the 2020 census, it is the most populous county in Virginia, the most populous jurisdiction in the Washington ...

Urban Search & Rescue Task Force from 1998 to 2006. From 1997 to 1999, he worked at

Littler Mendelson Littler Mendelson P.C. is a U.S.-based law firm that specializes in labor and employment law. They have been widely described as a "union busting" firm. The firm has offices in 28 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, ...

as an associate. He was an associate and of counsel at

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP (known as Akin Gump or Akin) is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is the second-largest lobbying firm in the United States by revenue. History The firm was founded in Dal ...

from 2000 to 2006. Cohn joined the

as the Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response Policy in the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

's Office of Policy Development, serving in that role from 2006 to 2008. In 2007, he joined the

Senior Executive Service The Senior Executive Service (SES) is a position classification in the United States federal civil service equivalent to general officer or flag officer rank in the U.S. Armed Forces. It was created in 1979 when the Civil Service Reform Act of ...

. From 2008 to 2012, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy (Strategic Plans). From 2012 to 2015, he served as Assistant Secretary for Strategy, Planning, Analysis & Risk, where his work was responsible for strategy development, assessment, and evaluation, strategic environment assessment, risk modeling, assessment, and analysis, capability and vulnerability assessment, and economic and statistical analysis. As Assistant Secretary, Cohn established the cyber policy office within the DHS Office of Policy and designed department policy on cybersecurity information sharing, cybercrime and cyber-related sanctions, and cyber incident management. He also represented the DHS on the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, designed and led the first two Quadrennial Homeland Security Reviews. He also helped implement DHS Secretary

Jeh Johnson Jeh Charles Johnson ( "Jay"; born September 11, 1957) is an American lawyer and former government official. He was United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017. From 2009 to 2012, Johnson was the general counsel of the Departm ...

’s Unity of Effort Initiative to reform DHS governance and management. In 2015, Cohn joined

Steptoe & Johnson Steptoe LLP (formerly known as Steptoe & Johnson LLP) is an international law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. It maintains offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, London, Brussels, Beijing, and Hong Kong. H ...

, becoming partner and co-chair of the firm's blockchain and

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

practice.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohn, Alan D. Columbia College (New York) alumni Georgetown University Law Center alumni United States Department of Homeland Security officials Obama administration personnel George W. Bush administration personnel Living people Year of birth missing (living people)