Faculty

Alexandra A. K. Meise

Assistant Professor

JD, Georgetown University Law Center
MPA, Columbia University
AB, Dartmouth College

Contact

Biography

Alexandra (Xander) Meise joined the Vermont Law and Graduate School faculty in July 2026 as associate professor in the residential JD program. Professor Meise’s research on sovereignty, statecraft, national security, and human rights stands at the intersection of policy and public and private international law. Her work explores the contributions of democratic institutions and economic development to rule of law and national security policy, especially in conjunction with accountability in crises and climate change’s effects on world order and governance.

Professor Meise came to VLGS from the Northeastern University School of Law, where she was faculty in the Legal Skills in Social Context program. From 2023-2026, she also served as the chair of Women, Peace, and Security Studies and a visiting professor of National Security Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy of the U.S. Army War College, where she pioneered a new course in Lawfare, as well as teaching Polar Regional Studies, National Security Policy and Strategy, and Theory of War and Strategy.

A second career academic, Professor Meise previously spent over a decade in practice preventing and resolving international disputes, including in human rights litigation, in treaty-based international arbitrations and public international law forums, and in designing and implementing legal reforms and human rights best practices.

She continues to be very active in legal capacity building and public engagement on these issues, especially on matters of civil/human rights, conflict and sovereign accountability, and climate change. In July 2021, she was named the Truman Center for National Policy’s inaugural Visiting Senior Fellow for Climate and Energy Security.

Her professional experience has spanned five continents, including work for the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia through the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT), for the U.S. Department of State at posts in Europe, and in international development in countries such as Yemen and Bosnia. Professor Meise has taught International Human Rights Law at Georgetown University Law Center (GULC), was a non-resident fellow of the  Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (a joint Center of Columbia Law School and Columbia Climate School) and a member of the Carnegie New Leaders program of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project. From 2019-2021, she served as a resident senior fellow for the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School and Annenberg Public Policy Center. She also clerked for the Hon. Jeffrey R. Howard on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Professor Meise holds degrees from Dartmouth College, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and Georgetown University Law Center, and was a Fulbright fellow at the Akademia e Arteve in Albania (2001-02).

Expertise

Human Rights
International Environmental Law
International Law
Law of Armed Conflict
National Security
Public Policy
Voting Rights

Departments

Faculty

Courses Taught

National Security Law
Professional Responsibility
Torts