Georgetown University has named Josh Bornstein, a longtime federal executive with extensive experience in emergency management and security, as its new vice president for public safety. He begins the role on September 2.
Bornstein most recently served as chief security officer and deputy associate administrator for mission support at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), overseeing security programs for FEMA employees and facilities and managing a $500 million budget. He has also held leadership positions at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), where his work spanned homeland security, public health, and food security.
At Georgetown, Bornstein will oversee the Georgetown University Police Department, the Department of Public Safety on both the Hilltop and Capitol campuses, the Office of Emergency Management, the Office of Environmental Health & Safety, and the Office of Public Health across the university’s downtown and neighborhood locations.
The new role marks a return to higher education for Bornstein, who began his career at Emory University in Atlanta.
“I know that every single day, the people at Georgetown are focused on creating knowledge and applying the Jesuit values,” he said. “To apply what I know to protect a community that is doing good is a dream come true.”
Bornstein’s interest in public safety took shape while he was an undergraduate at Emory during the Sept. 11 attacks. As a student government leader, he helped guide the university’s response and support classmates whose families were affected.
“We put ourselves in the room,” he said. “It was a transformational moment. It imprinted upon me that public service was going to be something that I did in my life.”
After graduation, Bornstein served as a hall director and conduct officer at Emory before earning a master’s in public administration with a focus on disaster management at Georgia State University. Selected as a Presidential Management Fellow, he interned in the CDC’s safety and security office — the same office he would later return to as director more than two decades into his federal career.
Over the years, Bornstein has led homeland security programs at USDA to defend U.S. food and agricultural systems, worked with international partners on biosurveillance and bioterrorism projects, and contributed to critical infrastructure protection.
At the CDC, he oversaw planning and implementation of the agency’s internal pandemic response, safeguarding its workforce during COVID-19, and represented the agency on the White House Safer Federal Workforce Task Force.
During his tenure at FEMA, Bornstein’s portfolio covered physical and personnel security, counterintelligence operations, fraud prevention, and security training. In 2024, during Hurricane Helene, he worked with North Carolina’s governor and local officials to maintain a safe operating environment for FEMA personnel supporting recovery operations.