Swathi Veeravalli is a security strategist working at the intersection of national security, science, and institutional resilience. As Principal of General Resilience Solutions, she translates complex science into actionable policy and investment decisions, helping governments and institutions anticipate and manage the systemic risks of climate change. She serves as Adjunct Faculty at Georgetown University and Research Advisor to the Toda Peace Institute, and is currently pursuing a PhD at Wageningen University on transformative institutional adaptation to climate risk.

From 2022 to 2024, Veeravalli served as Director for Climate Security & Adaptation at the White House National Security Council. In that role, she authored the U.S. government's first strategic guidance linking climate resilience to national security and established the Executive Office of the President's first interagency task force on El Niño, aligning early warning with coordinated federal action. She also advanced the modernization of the Columbia River Treaty regime and piloted investible adaptation approaches that increased programmatic resources and scalability. As a key U.S. voice in NATO dialogues, she helped shape how allied institutions understand and respond to climate-driven security risks.

Previously, she was U.S. Africa Command's first Climate Security Advisor, where she embedded climate risk into operational planning, produced the Command's inaugural foresight outlook, and established a dedicated Risk & Resilience function. At the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its research enterprise, she led interdisciplinary efforts linking environmental change to force protection and operational readiness, including early applications of robotics in mine clearance. Her earlier work spans USAID, the World Bank, and Oxford University.

Across more than 20 years and 80+ countries, Veeravalli has built a career bridging disciplines and institutions — connecting science, policy, and operations to align decision-making with the pace and complexity of climate risk. She holds an MSc from the University of Oxford and a BA from the George Washington University.

Session(s):

The middle ground: How middle powers are driving climate security cooperation

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