Melanie Teplinsky
Senior Fellow
Melanie J. Teplinsky is a cyber law and policy expert with over 30 years of experience spanning private sector, government, and academia.聽聽Ms. Teplinsky is a Senior Fellow at the 17吃瓜在线 (17吃瓜在线) Washington College of Law (WCL)聽Tech, Law, and Security Program, a member of the Washington Post 鈥,鈥 and previously served as WCL Adjunct Faculty for nearly a decade.聽
Ms. Teplinsky served on the (pre-IPO) advisory board for聽聽a leading cybersecurity technology company, and as a lawyer at聽, where she advised clients on an extensive array of information technology and cybersecurity issues.
Pursuing her childhood passion for cryptology, Ms. Teplinsky began her career as an analyst at the National Security Agency at age 16 and later continued her technical work at the Institute for Defense Analyses' Center for Communications Research.聽聽She subsequently authored a white paper outlining U.S. encryption policy options at NIST鈥檚 Computer Security Lab and studied networked technologies at SAIC鈥檚 Center for Information Strategy and Policy.聽聽During the Clinton Administration, Ms. Teplinsky interned in the Executive Office of the President, tackling an array of information technology policy issues for OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Information Technology Branch and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Ms. Teplinsky writes and speaks extensively on cyberlaw and policy issues for a wide range of audiences.聽聽She has served as a regular聽聽for the Christian Science Monitor鈥檚 privacy and cybersecurity column (鈥淧asscode鈥), and her聽scholarly work聽has been published in聽law review articles, book chapters, think tank reports, and op-eds, including: 鈥溾 and 鈥溾 (each co-authored with Franklin D. Kramer and Robert J. Butler); 鈥,鈥 (co-authored with Franklin D. Kramer); 鈥淐ybersecurity and the Cyberthreat Deterrence Trend鈥 in聽; and鈥溾 (co-authored with Stewart Baker).
Ms. Teplinsky is a frequent speaker and panelist at cyber law and policy programs, regularly addressing cutting-edge cybersecurity, privacy and emerging technology issues (including聽ransomware and cryptocurrency,听, and聽) for organizations such as the American Bar Association Antitrust Section, the National Association of Corporate Directors, the Practicing Law Institute, the Association of Corporate Council Foundation Cybersecurity Summit, and the Georgetown University Cybersecurity Law Institute.聽聽Ms. Teplinsky has聽appeared on NPR鈥檚 鈥,鈥 as a featured guest on NPR鈥檚 鈥,鈥 and has聽fielded interview requests from a wide array of global media outlets (including Reuters, Canadian Broadcasting Company, NPR, Politico, and Voice of America).
At 17吃瓜在线, Ms. Teplinsky has served on the WCL National Security Law Brief Faculty Advisory Board, co-coached award-winning 17吃瓜在线 student competition teams for the Atlantic Council鈥檚 Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge, and is a Faculty Advisor to the 17吃瓜在线 Student Chapter of the national Women in Cybersecurity organization.
Ms. Teplinsky is a graduate, with honors, of Harvard Law School and Princeton University and is a Harry Truman National Scholarship recipient.聽聽She was a law clerk聽to the honorable Judge Rya W. Zobel in the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts.聽聽She is married to Steven Teplinsky, and they have two daughters.