Jessica Dorsey

Jessica Dorsey graduated from Washburn Rural in 2000 and obtained a B.A. in English in 2004 from the University of Kansas, with a focus on grammar and usage of the language. Her first job was as an Editorial Assistant at a major publishing house in Birmingham, Alabama, but it was a "happy accident" involving the incorrect installment of a car headlight at a repair shop that lit the fire for her to pursue a career in law. She moved back to Topeka and graduated from Washburn University School of Law in 2008 with her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree, after focusing on civil, constitutional and human rights, and received a Certificate in International and Comparative Law, with distinction. That same year, she moved to the Netherlands with its many international law opportunities to pursue an additional specialization, a master's in law degree (LL.M.) in Public International Law, Human Rights, and International Humanitarian Law at Utrecht University School of Law in 2010. Jessica worked for the Municipality of Utrecht on a human rights initiative and taught at the University of Utrecht School of Law before taking a position as a legal researcher in human rights and humanitarian law at the internationally renowned T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague. Her work on drone warfare and accountability and transparency for military actions led to her becoming a prominent name in Europe for her expertise.

Since 2013, she has also been an Associate Fellow of the International Center for Counterterrorism—The Hague. In 2016, she left the Asser Institute for work at the Dutch human rights non-governmental organization PAX, where she led the European Forum on Armed Drones and did advocacy work at the national, European, and international levels on human rights and counterterrorism issues. She has spoken at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and Nairobi on issues related to accountability and transparency for drone strikes and targeted killings and aspects related to the costs of armed conflict on the environment. In 2017, the European Parliament contracted Jessica to advise its Subcommittee on Human Rights about the legal contours of the acquisition and military use of armed drones.

In 2019, in order to return to inspiring the human rights defenders of the future, she took a position as a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam in the interdisciplinary Politics, Psychology, Law, and Economics honor's program. In 2020, she elected to switch universities and is now working as an Assistant Professor at the Utrecht University School of Law, where she teaches European law, international human rights, and humanitarian law courses and develops legal skills initiatives in Bachelor's and Master's programs alongside her consultancy work related to the use of armed drones. Jessica is also an Executive Board member of Airwars, a London-based non-governmental organization dedicated to monitoring and assessing civilian harm from airpower-dominated international military actions.

In 2018, the Alumni Association of the Washburn University School of Law presented Jessica with the Graduate of the Last Decade award, which "honors recent Washburn Law graduates whose performance and commitment has set an example of professionalism and demonstrated leadership in the legal field, in their community, or to the School of Law." Jessica travels as frequently as she can back to Topeka, where her parents still reside, and does outreach such as giving talks or lectures about her work to groups or consulting with current law students about careers in international law. Jessica resides in Maarsbergen, The Netherlands, and is married to Stijn, a Dutch journalist and author. They have two children, Sebastiaan and Noa, and a feisty Spanish terrier named Max.