Stephanie L. Hammond served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability and Humanitarian Affairs and focused on the management and oversight of humanitarian assistance and foreign disaster relief programs; civil affairs; embassy security and crisis response policy and coordination; international humanitarian and human rights law and policy; stabilization authorities; United Nations peace operations reform, including training United Nations Peacekeepers; and DoD personnel at the United Nations. She was also the lead on the Department of Defense COVID-19 Task Force for international humanitarian response. Previously, Stephanie was the special assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy where she has handled the International Security Affairs portfolio and Secretary of Defense strategic management forums, including the Combatant Command baseline reviews and National Defense Strategy Implementation. Stephanie has also managed the law of armed conflict policy portfolio within Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.

Previously, Stephanie served as the World Vision humanitarian policy advisor where she focused on the global refugee crisis and complex humanitarian emergency response. Before working at an international NGO, Stephanie was a foreign policy advisor in the U.S. Congress for over five years and focused on emerging national security challenges, human rights, rule of law, global health, humanitarian aid, and State Department and USAID oversight.  While on Capitol Hill, Stephanie served as the staff director for the International Religious Freedom Caucus, a bipartisan coalition of 80 members of Congress who address global religious persecution, and the Global HIV/AIDS Caucus, a bipartisan coalition of over 120 members of Congress.

Stephanie has spoken before the U.S. Congress, U.S. Army War College, United Nations, Rutgers University, Concordia Seminary, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and has appeared on FOX and CNN. She has worked in a dozen countries and interfaced with government officials, civil society groups, and refugees in Algeria, Turkey, Serbia, Cyprus, Israel, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and South Sudan.

Stephanie graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis where she completed an honors thesis on the British eugenics movement.  She studied at Christ Church, Oxford University and has received Harvard Law School’s Negotiation Certificate. She is a member of the CSIS Global Women’s Leadership Executive Fellowship, the Council on Foreign Relations, and has received the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Civilian Service Award.