<span class="vcard">Tess Bridgeman</span>

Tess Bridgeman

Co-Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Tess Bridgeman (Bluesky – LinkedIn) is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Just Security. She 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) during the Obama administration. She also served at the State Department in the Office of the Legal Adviser as Special Assistant to the Legal Adviser and, prior to that role, as an Attorney Adviser in the Office of Political-Military Affairs.

Bridgeman is a 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. She is an affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), lectures at Berkeley Law, is a former chair of the American Society of International Law (ASIL)’s Strategic Initiatives Committee, and currently serves on ASIL’s Executive Council. Previously in her career, Bridgeman has worked at the World Bank Inspection Panel, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and clerked for Judge Thomas L. Ambro of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bridgeman has a D.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar; a JD from NYU Law School, magna cum laude and Order of the Coif, which she attended as a Root-Tilden-Kern and Institute for International Law and Justice Scholar; and a BA from Stanford University.

Articles by this author:

General view of the Jose Antonio Anzoategui Petrochemical Complex in Puerto Piritu, Anzoategui, Venezuela.
The U.S. Capitol building is seen at sunset.
An Iranian woman walks past a mural depicting late Iranian supreme leaders Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (R) in Tehran on June 18, 2026.
In this picture obtained from Iran's ISNA news agency on May 4, 2026, the Iran-flagged tugboat Basim sails near a ship anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. Iran's Revolutionary Guards on May 4 denied that any commercial ships had crossed the Strait of Hormuz, after the US military earlier said two US-flagged merchant vessels had transited through the vital waterway. (Photo by Amirhossein KHORGOOEI / ISNA / AFP via Getty Images) /
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth listens as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on June 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Three cone shaped flags on poles, Israel, Iran, United States, isolated on a transparent background (via Getty Images).
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