Stanford University

Tess Bridgeman

Tess Bridgeman Headshot

Tess Bridgeman

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Biography

Dr. Tess Bridgeman is Co-Editor-in-Chief at Just Security and Senior Fellow and Visiting Scholar at NYU Law School’s Reiss Center on Law and Security, where she created the War Powers Resolution Reporting Project. During the Obama administration, Bridgeman served in the White House as Special Assistant to the President, Associate Counsel to the President, and Deputy Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC), where she advised on a broad range of issues relating to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. 

Dr. Bridgeman speaks and writes frequently on foreign affairs, national security, international law, and democracy and the rule of law. She has testified before Congress and regularly briefs members of Congress, committees, and staff. Her analysis and commentary are frequently featured in televised news, documentary, print, radio, and podcast formats in the United States and internationally (including CBS, BBC, CNN, NBC, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Reuters, NPR, MSNow, Politico, Axios, The Bulwark, Crooked Media, The Hill, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and at The New York Historical, among others). 

Bridgeman previously served in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser, where she was Special Assistant to the Legal Adviser and, prior to that role, served as an Attorney Adviser in the Office of Political-Military Affairs. Previously in her career, Bridgeman clerked for Judge Thomas L. Ambro of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, worked at the World Bank Inspection Panel, at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and co-founded a food security and community development organization in Oaxaca, Mexico. 

Bridgeman has a D.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar; a J.D. from NYU Law School, magna cum laude and Order of the Coif, which she attended as a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar, Institute for International Law and Justice Scholar, and Harry S. Truman Scholar; and a B.A. with University Distinction and Departmental Honors from Stanford University. She has taught cyber law and policy at Stanford University and lectures on national security law at Berkeley Law. She previously chaired the Strategic Initiatives Committee of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) and currently serves on ASIL’s Executive Council. She also serves on the Board of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. 

You can find some of her recent publications, podcasts, congressional testimony, and online articles here:

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CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, SELECT LECTURES & PRESENTATIONS

 

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