Barton Gellman is the senior adviser to the president and executive director of the Brennan Center. His focus is on building safeguards against threats to democracy.
Gellman came to the Brennan Center from The Atlantic, where he was an award-winning staff writer. He is the author of Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State (Penguin Press, 2020) and the best-selling Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency (Penguin Books, 2009). He previously held positions as a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a lecturer at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and a visiting research collaborator at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy.
Before joining The Atlantic, Gellman spent 21 years at The Washington Post, where he served tours as a legal, diplomatic, military, and Middle East correspondent.
Gellman anchored the team that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the National Security Agency and Edward Snowden, and he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series on Vice President Dick Cheney. In 2002, he was a member of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. Other professional honors include two George Polk Awards in Journalism, two Overseas Press Club awards, two Emmy Awards for a PBS Frontline documentary, Harvard University’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Gellman graduated with highest honors from Princeton University and earned a master’s degree in politics at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
