Iris Lan

Iris Lan serves as NASA’s General Counsel and oversees its team of attorneys and staff responsible for NASA’s legal affairs.

Lan is a graduate of Harvard University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics, master’s degree in history of science, and law degree. After graduating law school, Lan clerked for Judge William C. Bryson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and served as a commercial litigator in private practice, during which she also advised tech sector clients on antitrust issues and was admitted to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Lan subsequently joined the U.S. Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted complex counterterrorism, counterintelligence, export control, cyber intrusion, and corporate fraud cases.  Later, she was deputy chief of the appellate section, supervising attorneys in briefing and arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and also served in the Office of Legal Counsel in Washington, D.C.

Before joining NASA, and for over a decade, Lan was an associate deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice with responsibilities over the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys and the department’s Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. 

Lan is a member of the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.