Emily Cheesman is a project assistant in the Forward Defense initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where she contributes to the initiative’s work on nuclear strategy and space security.
Prior to the Atlantic Council, Cheesman worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research and Nuclear Threat Reduction program and interned at the US Department of State.
Cheesman earned her BS in foreign service from Georgetown University and is pursuing a master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in international relations. She is a 2026 Center for Strategic and International Studies nuclear scholar and a 2023 Nuclear Nonproliferation Education and Research Center summer fellow.