Dana Hyde '89

Dana Hyde '89, a former State Department and White House official, was killed March 3 when the plane in which she was traveling experienced extreme turbulence.

According to the Washington Post article detailing the tragedy, Hyde’s husband, Jonathan Chambers, said in an email that the couple and one of their sons were returning from a trip to visit schools in New England.

“Dana was the best person I ever knew. She was a wonderful mother to our boys and she was accomplished professionally,” Chambers wrote. “She loved and was beloved.”

As Associate Director at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Obama administration, Hyde led a team that managed more than $150 billion in budgetary resources across six cabinet agencies and helped make difficult choices at a time of increasingly limited resources.

A political science major at UCLA and a graduate of Georgetown Law School, Hyde came to OMB from the State Department, where she led the establishment of the Office of Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources and went on to serve as Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Jack Lew. At State, Hyde helped bring reform and innovation to U.S. diplomacy and development efforts around the globe, including developing country-owned, country-led initiatives to improve health in the developing world, contributing to the first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and strengthening the lifesaving work of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Earlier in her career, Hyde served as counsel to the 9/11 Commission, investigating the immediate response of the White House, the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In the Clinton administration, she coordinated policy and outreach initiatives for federal agencies handling national security and trade policy as Special Assistant to the President for Cabinet Affairs.

Hyde's long-standing focus on international development and poverty issues during her years in Washington included the position of chief executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an independent U.S. agency that seeks to reduce global poverty.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) posted a tribute to Hyde, writing, "Dana’s legacy lives on in many critical infrastructure projects that have transformed lives in communities across Africa and Asia, and in the memories of so many of us who had the privilege of working with her."

As an attorney, Hyde practiced in London as a member of WilmerHale’s international arbitration group and in Washington, D.C., as a litigation associate at Zuckerman Spaeder. Hyde also worked at the Justice Department, serving as special assistant to two deputy attorneys general.