Executive Director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security and Adjunct Professor of Law
Tell us the story of how you came to work at NYU Law? Were you always in your current position?
Coming to work at NYU Law was a wonderful and unexpected opportunity. I was living in Washington, DC at the time, having recently served in a number of foreign policy roles in the Obama Administration, and thinking about what would be a meaningful and challenging next step. Throughout my career, I have worked as both a policy practitioner and a lawyer. When the opportunity arose to relocate back to New York, my hometown, in order to work at the intersection of law and policy through relaunching the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU Law, my alma mater, I knew it would be a perfect fit at an important moment in this field.
What’s a typical day for you like?
As with so many people, a typical day for me starts well before work begins, with getting my kids up, fed, clothed, packed, and off to school. I try to prioritize caffeine as early as possible. I make sure to digest early morning news, newsletters, and all of the other incoming information from a variety of platforms before the day overtakes me.
What we do at the Reiss Center involves both rapid response work, where we provide context and analysis on what’s happening now in the world, as well as longer-term research and projects, where we leverage our perch at an academic institution to look at national security issues from an in-depth or fresh perspective. I also spend a fair amount of time working with students and other members of the NYU Law community to ensure that we are offering robust resources, mentorship, community, and intellectual grounding for the people who will be the next generation of leaders in this field.
In practice, this means that when I walk in the door on a given day, I might be facing in any number of directions. I could be planning a public program to delve into a pressing issue, meeting with a student in my office about their career planning, preparing to co-teach our Law and Security Colloquium, editing a piece for a publication series, speaking with a policy maker, working with our faculty directors to identify priorities, or meeting with my team to craft communications materials or liaise about our upcoming programs.
I aspire to be someone who uses my standing desk…but most days you’d probably find me sitting. I have a terrible habit of printing out the many things I need to read or edit, so I am usually surrounded by big, listing piles of articles, reports, and legal opinions.
What’s the most challenging thing about what you do? And what’s the most rewarding?
Same answer to both: the sheer variety of my work. It can be challenging to switch gears so often, but it’s also what makes this role so interesting and rich.
Beyond that, I think of one of our central challenges as identifying the issues that are topical and front-of-mind, but will have lasting resonance as the world continues to shift and change, and where we as a center, with our unique confluence of people and expertise, can add value to an already crowded conversation.
I find it rewarding to bring so much of what we do back to the community at the Law School, whether through programs students can attend, mentorship from leading thinkers and practitioners, or meaningful research opportunities on real-world problems. Having an impact on students and staying in touch with them as they go on to amazing things is another one of my favorite things about this role. Finally, it’s a privilege to be in a job where I am always learning—whether from our faculty co-directors, each of whom are leading experts in so many different facets of national security law and policy, or from my team of astute and dedicated colleagues, who manage to keep the wheels on while also being fun to work with.
What do you wish you’d known about the Law School on your first day of working here?
Even as an alum, I found there was a lot I didn’t know about the inner workings of the Law School. All bureaucracies move in mysterious ways, and it took some time to learn about how best to operate as a center within a law school within a university. The plus side, though, has been finding generous colleagues and meeting many brilliant people doing very different things along the way.
What is your favorite spot on campus, and why?
Underneath the magnolia trees in the Vanderbilt [Guarini] courtyard in springtime. No matter what’s happening in the world, they always offer up a little bit of beauty and serenity.