Alice Miller
CEO
NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief

Alice Miller is a pioneering aerospace engineer, humanitarian leader and advocate for gender equality whose actions transformed opportunities for women in Israel’s military and beyond. Born in South Africa and raised in Israel from age 6, Miller discovered that women were barred from the prestigious Israeli Air Force pilot course. Refusing to accept this exclusion, she earned an aerospace engineering degree from the Technion, obtained a private pilot’s license and at 22 filed a lawsuit against the Israel Defense Forces and the government, challenging gender-based discrimination.

In 1995, her case — Miller v. Minister of Defense — resulted in a landmark Supreme Court ruling that declared the policy unconstitutional, stating it “violates their dignity and degrades them.” Though Miller herself was later deemed medically unfit for the program, her victory opened the skies to generations of women. Today, women serve as pilots, navigators and commanders across the Air Force, and over 90% of IDF positions are open to them.

After a decade as an Air Force aerospace engineer and officer, Miller’s entrepreneurial spirit led her to establish an eco-friendly Himalayan resort with her family, deepening her cross-cultural fluency and adding Hindi to her languages alongside Hebrew and English. Returning to Israel, she joined the high-tech sector, serving as VP of Space at Helios, developing rocket fuel systems for space journeys to the Moon and Mars.

Following the events of October 7, Miller turned her focus to humanitarian work. As CEO of NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief, she now leads over 1,800 volunteers providing medical, dental and psychosocial support to communities in crisis. Her life reflects an enduring commitment to breaking barriers, engineering solutions to human challenges, and transforming adversity into positive impact—an evolution from aerospace engineer to humanitarian leader.