Grant T. Harris
Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs
Grant T. Harris currently serves as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs on the National Security Staff of the White House. Prior to this position, Mr. Harris was Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Susan E. Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet. Mr. Harris also served as Senior Policy Advisor to Ambassador Rice and was a member of the Obama/Biden Transition Team. Previously, Mr. Harris was an associate at the law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, where he focused on international financings and business transactions. Prior to that, Mr. Harris served in the African Affairs Directorate at the National Security Council at the White House and at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations during the Clinton Administration.
Mr. Harris is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he served on the Journal of International Law and was awarded the Ambrose Gherini Prize for best paper in the field of international law. Mr. Harris also received a Master’s in Public Affairs, with Distinction, from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He received a B.A. in Political Science, with Highest Honors, from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was president of the student body. His writings have appeared in such publications as Yale Journal of Law & Policy, Berkeley Journal of International Law, Israel Law Review (peer-reviewed), and The San Francisco Chronicle. He received the Francis Lieber Prize from the American Society of International Law for outstanding scholarship in the field of the law of armed conflict.
